Systems and methods for evaluating a healthcare professional

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods for evaluating healthcare professionals include providing a software interface hosted at least partially on a server having a processor and computer-readable memory and electronically accessible through at least one network system by at least one user computer device having a processor and computer-readable memory, wherein upon accessing the software interface, a user is presented with categories of topics and practice areas of expertise associated with the healthcare professional which the user can vote on using the at least one user computer device; receiving a plurality of votes for the healthcare professional from credentialed healthcare professional users and patients users; processing the votes from the credentialed healthcare users and patient users separately for each topic and practice area; and presenting the result of the healthcare professional&#39; votes from credentialed healthcare users and from the patient users separately for each topic and practice area.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a divisional application from co-pending U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/320,241, filed Jun. 30, 2014, which claimspriority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/841,145, filed Jun. 28,2013, U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/841,151, filed Jun. 28, 2013and U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/841,174, filed Jun. 28, 2013,the contents of each of which are incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to evaluating healthcare professionals ina social network setting. More particularly, the present inventionrelates to providing information about healthcare professionals,assisting patients to select healthcare professionals to fit their ownneeds, providing quick and trustworthy answers to health-relatedquestions, and facilitating virtual consultations between patients andhealthcare professionals in a social network setting.

BACKGROUND

Currently, the process of choosing a healthcare professional is timeconsuming, inefficient, and filled with uncertainty. When individualsfind themselves in need of medical care, they often have difficult timefinding a doctor with whom they will be satisfied. Many individualsselect their doctors based on: a referral from a primary care physician,a recommendation from a friend or relative, or a healthcare providerdirectory. These sources do not provide an objective metric for thequality of the doctor's knowledge as assessed by a broader medicalcommunity or based on publicly available information.

Further, patients might look for a healthcare provider directory or someInternet rating website. However, most Internet rating websites providecollections of comments or ratings from unidentified sources and theveracity of data remains unknown to the community. These sources do notprovide an objective metric for the quality of the doctor's knowledge asassessed by a broader medical community or based on publicly availableinformation.

There is thus a need to provide a trustworthy system and method toprovide information for evaluating professionals such as medicalprofessionals based on merits and the medical professional'sperformance.

The Internet is a huge information repository. When individuals findthemselves in need of an answer to a question within a specialized fieldof knowledge, such as health question, they often turn to the Internet.However, the sources of the answers to such questions provided on theInternet are often not identified and have dubious credibility.Accordingly, consulting the Internet with such questions, e.g., using asearch engine, often leaves people more confused, scared and misinformedthan they were before. There is a need to provide methods and systems tohelp people find reliable information in specialized fields such asmedical and health-related fields.

However, seeking reliable answers in certain fields can be expensive,inefficient and inconvenient. For example, if one wants an answer for acurious, but not necessarily serious, ailment from a doctor, it can takeweeks to get an appointment with the doctor. Also it is costly to visitthe doctor or emergency room. While there is no replacement for anin-person visit with a doctor who knows your medical history, sometimeswe may just need quick, reliable medical information or advice. Thus,there is a need for new systems and methods of communication andinformation exchange between doctors and patients (or investors andbankers; potential clients and lawyers; students and professors; and soon) beyond doctor office visits, such that patients can obtain quick,reliable medical information or advice from trustworthy doctors withvery little cost, if any.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The following brief summary is not intended to include all features andaspects of the present invention, nor does it imply that the inventionmust include all features and aspects discussed in this summary. Someembodiments below describe interactions with doctors, but could apply toany professional providing medical diagnosis, treatment, advice, supportor care.

The present disclosure, in some embodiments, providescomputer-implemented methods and systems for evaluating healthcareprofessionals, comprising: a) receiving, by the computer processor, aplurality of attributes data indicative of professional qualificationand performance; b) assigning each said attribute, by the computerprocessor, a value or a function calculating such a value based on thevariables affecting that said attribute; c) computing and storing, bythe computer processor, the sum of every result value of each attributein step b; d) receiving, by the computer processor, feedback data forthe healthcare professional's engagement with other users; e) assigningeach feedback data, by the computer processor, a value or a functioncalculating such a value based on the variables affecting that saidfeedback data; f) computing and storing, by the computer processor, thesum of every result value of each feedback data in step e; g)generating, by the computer processor, an overall value based on step cand step f.

In one embodiment, the attributes indicative of professionalqualification and performance are selected from a group ofconsiderations comprising: education, training, certification,experience, publication, editorial positions, academic appointment,referrals, awards, professional society participation, and hospitalaffiliation. More specifically, the attributes indicatives ofprofessional qualification and performance are selected from a group ofconsiderations named as Education Factor, Training Factor, CertificationFactor, Experience Factor, Publication Factor, Editorial PositionFactor, Academic Appointment Factor, Referral Factor, Achievements andAwards Factor, Professional Society Participation Factor, HospitalAffiliation Factor, and the like. However, the above listed factors arenot exhaustive, and other factors which contribute to the performance,reputation, or the practicing skills of the healthcare professional maybe considered.

In another embodiment, the step of computing and storing the value ofeach attribute indicative of professional qualification and performanceand computing the sum value of all attributes is achieved by a computerprocessor Profile Data Calculation Module. This module has alreadyassigned each attribute individual value or functions to calculate suchvalue based on variables affecting said attribute. This module willderive a sum of each individual value calculated under each attribute.Therefore, it is important to note that the value or the function tocalculate such value assigned to each attribute should not be limited tothe examples disclosed here. Various different points, numeric values orother forms of value may be assigned to each of the above attributes.Functions for each attribute may differ, to take into considerations ofall the relevant variables that may affect the said attribute. Theassigned value or the designed functions may differ from the examplesexplicitly set forth in this disclosure, and may be any assigned valuesor functions that reflect an evaluation of the healthcare professional'smerits and overall standing.

In another embodiment, the step of computing and storing the value ofeach feedback or endorsement and sum the value of all the feedbacks andendorsements is processed by a computer processor Feedback DataCalculation Module. In addition, in the Feedback Data CalculationModule, the sum value of the feedback can be scaled by the contemporarynature of the feedback or endorsement. In this module, a value or afunction to calculate such value is assigned to each feedback orendorsement activity. Based on the feedback or endorsement thehealthcare professional received, this module will calculate a sum or aweighed sum of all the result values under each feedback or endorsement.Again, the value and function assigned to each feedback data should notbe limited to the examples disclosed herein. Other such points, numericvalue, or other forms of value or function to calculate such value maybe assigned, and different functions may be formulated for weighting orotherwise valuing for each feedback data entry, taking into account anyvariables which may be relevant to the feedback data entry. Though theassigned value or the designed functions may be different than theexamples in this disclosure, they reflect an evaluation of thehealthcare professional's merits and overall standing and thuscontemplated by the present disclosure.

The meaning of the sum of the Feedback Data value is scaled by thecontemporary nature is that if the healthcare professional has beeninactive for some time, the Feedback Data value will decay. Such decaycan be a function of the days since the healthcare professional has notbeen active, or can be a function of the rate of the questions beinganswered out of the total questions sent to the healthcare professionalsin certain period of time. A function may scale the sum raw FeedbackData points by the time consideration/contemporary nature of the data.Other functions may scale the sum raw Feedback Data Points by differentfactors or considerations. Such calculation should not be limited by theexamples presented in this disclosure.

In one embodiment, the Profile Data Value and the Feedback Data Valueare functions of their corresponding raw values respectively and areconverted into a smaller range for easy understanding. For example, inone embodiment, the Profile Data value is converted into a numeric valuerange of 50-85. The Feedback Data value is converted to a range of 0-20.The overall value (Reputation Score) is converted into a range 50-100(though a maximum 99 points of Reputation Score may be set). Suchconverting functions can be segmented linear functions of thecorresponding raw data which may be designed to reflect a sharp drop inthe first 30 days inactiveness. Other functions may convert the rawscores into a preferred value format, for example in numeric value or inpercentile. One or more segmented linear functions may assign adifferent drop rate for the healthcare professional's inactiveness. Thetwo components of the Reputation score (i.e., Profile Data Value andFeedback Data Value) may allocated differing weights under the teachingof the present disclosure.

In one embodiment, the present disclosure provides a system forgenerating a healthcare professional evaluation system, comprising amemory comprising instructions executable by one or more processors; andone or more processors coupled to the memory and operable to execute theinstructions, the one or more processors being operable when executingthe instructions to perform the steps of: a) receiving, by the computerprocessor, a plurality of attributes data indicative of professionalqualification and performance; b) assigning each said attribute, by thecomputer processor, a value or a function calculating such a value basedon the variables affecting that said attribute; c) computing andstoring, by the computer processor, the sum of every result value ofeach attribute in step b; d) receiving, by the computer processor,feedback data for the healthcare professional's engagement with otherusers; e) assigning each feedback data, by the computer processor, avalue or a function calculating such a value based on the variablesaffecting that said feedback data; f) computing and storing, by thecomputer processor, the sum of every result value of each feedback datain step e; g) generating, by the computer processor, an overall valuebased on step c and step f.

In one embodiment, the present disclosure provides one or morecomputer-readable storage media embodying software operable whenexecuted by one or more computer systems to perform: a) receiving, bythe computer processor, a plurality of attributes data indicative ofprofessional qualification and performance; b) assigning each saidattribute, by the computer processor, a value or a function calculatingsuch a value based on the variables affecting that said attribute; c)computing and storing, by the computer processor, the sum of everyresult value of each attribute in step b; d) receiving, by the computerprocessor, feedback data for the healthcare professional's engagementwith other users; e) assigning each feedback data, by the computerprocessor, a value or a function calculating such a value based on thevariables affecting that said feedback data; f) computing and storing,by the computer processor, the sum of every result value of eachfeedback data in step e; g) generating, by the computer processor, anoverall value based on step c and step f.

Such evaluation systems and methods are also applicable to institutions,other professionals in health industry and in clinic field, andinstitutions alike. Further, while some embodiments provided by thepresent disclosure are described primarily as involving healthcareprofessionals, the systems and methods provided herein may beadvantageously employed for use by other professionals, includinglawyers, teachers, accountants, contractors or any other serviceproviders. The present disclosure describes interactions with doctors,but could apply to any professional providing medical diagnosis,treatment, advice or care. Further, while the present disclosure isdescribed with particular respect to doctors, the present disclosure isnot limited for use in any particular profession or area of expertise;rather, the systems and methods provided herein may be advantageouslyemployed for use by other professionals or persons having expertise inany given field. For example, using the systems and methods providedherein, professionals in various fields may solicit and/or receive votesindicating skill in a particular specialty or sub-specialty, including,lawyers, professors, accountants, contractors, bankers and so on.

In one embodiment, the present disclosure provides acomputer-implemented method for evaluating a healthcare professional,the method comprising: providing a software interface hosted at leastpartially on a server having a processor and computer-readable memoryand electronically accessible through at least one network system by atleast one user computer device having a processor and computer-readablememory, wherein upon accessing the software interface, a user ispresented with categories of topics and practice areas of expertiseassociated with the healthcare professional which the user can vote onusing the at least one user computer device; receiving a plurality ofvotes from both credentialed medical professional users and patient;processing the votes from credentialed physicians and from the patientusers separately under each topic and practicing area; and presentingthe result of the votes from credentialed physicians and from thepatient users separately under each topic and practicing area.

In one embodiment, the computer-implemented method further comprisespresenting content showing the healthcare professionals' credentialstogether with the result of the healthcare professional's votes.

In one embodiment, the result of the healthcare professional's votes isdetermined by the geographic location of the patient users. Thegeographic location is at least one of: the city, state, and countrywhere the patient users are located.

In one embodiment, the result of the healthcare professional's votes isidentified as a top result within the geographic location.

In one embodiment, the categories of topics and practice areas ofexpertise are selected based on at least one specialty of the healthcareprofessional.

In one embodiment, the categories of topics and practice areas ofexpertise are selected based on at least one peer-reviewed publicationof the healthcare professional.

In one embodiment, at least one of the categories of topics and practiceareas of expertise is selected by at least one patient user.

In one embodiment, the categories of topics and practice areas ofexpertise are selected by the healthcare professional.

In one embodiment, the computer-implemented method also includespresenting content provided by the healthcare professional together withthe result of the healthcare professional's votes.

In one embodiment, the computer-implemented method also includespresenting at least one of: healthcare professional users' responses tocontent provided by the healthcare professional, patient users'responses to content provided by the healthcare professional, and theresponsiveness of the healthcare professional in providing content. Inanother embodiment, the present disclosure provides a healthcareprofessional evaluation system, comprising a memory comprisinginstructions executable by one or more processors; and one or moreprocessors coupled to the memory and operable to execute theinstructions, the one or more processors being operable when executingthe instructions to: generating, by the computer processor, categoriesof topics and practicing area the medical professional has expertise in;receiving a plurality of votes from both credentialed medicalprofessional users and patient users under each topic and practicingarea; computing and processing the votes from credentialed physiciansand from the patient users separately under each topic and practicingarea; and presenting the result value of the votes from credentialedphysicians and from the patient users separately under each topic andpracticing area.

In another embodiment, the present disclosure provides a system forevaluating a healthcare professional. The system includes at least onepatient user computer device, which has a processor andcomputer-readable memory, and at least one healthcare professionalcomputer device, which has a processor and computer-readable memory. Thesystem also includes a votes processing application, hosted at leastpartially on a server having a processor and computer-readable memory.The server is electronically accessible over at least one network systemto the at least one healthcare professional user computer device and atleast one patient user computer device. The votes processing applicationpresents categories of topics and practice areas of expertise associatedwith the healthcare professional which a user can vote on. The votesprocessing application receives a plurality of votes for the healthcareprofessional from the at least one healthcare professional user computerdevice and the at least one patient user computer device, the votes forthe healthcare professional being associated with respective topics andpractice areas. The votes processing application processes the receivedvotes from the healthcare professional users and from the patient usersseparately for each topic and practice area. The votes processing alsopresents the result of the healthcare professional's votes received fromthe healthcare professional users and from the patient users separatelyfor each topic and practice area.

In one embodiment, the votes processing application further presentscontent showing at least one credential of the healthcare professionalstogether with the result of the healthcare professional's votes.

In one embodiment, the result of the healthcare professional's votes isdetermined by the geographic location of the patient users. Thegeographic location is at least one of: the city, state, and countrywhere the patient users are located.

In one embodiment, the result of the healthcare professional's votes isidentified as a top result within the geographic location.

In one embodiment, the categories of topics and practice areas ofexpertise are selected based on at least one specialty of the healthcareprofessional.

In one embodiment, the categories of topics and practice areas ofexpertise are selected based on at least one peer-reviewed publicationof the healthcare professional.

In one embodiment, at least one of the categories of topics and practiceareas of expertise is selected by at least one patient user.

In one embodiment, the categories of topics and practice areas ofexpertise are selected by the healthcare professional.

In one embodiment, the votes processing application further presentscontent provided by the healthcare professional together with the resultof the healthcare professional's votes.

In one embodiment, votes processing application further presents atleast one of: healthcare professional users' responses to contentprovided by the healthcare professional, patient users' responses tocontent provided by the healthcare professional, and the responsivenessof the healthcare professional in providing content.

In another embodiment, the present disclosure provides one or morecomputer-readable storage media embodying software operable whenexecuted by one or more computer systems to perform: generating, by thecomputer processor, categories of topics or practicing area the medicalprofessional has expertise in; receiving a plurality of votes from bothcredentialed medical professional users and patient users under eachtopic or practicing area; computing and processing the votes fromcredentialed physicians and from the patient users separately under eachtopic or practicing area; and presenting the result value of the votesfrom credentialed physicians and from the patient users separately undereach topic or practicing area.

In yet another embodiment, the present disclosure providescomputer-implemented systems and methods for providing quick andtrustworthy answers to health information. In one embodiment, suchcomputer-implemented system comprises steps of receiving, by thecomputer processor, a health related question from the users; placingthe question in a queue where all unanswered questions are sequenced inreverse chronological order; delegating questions prioritized by theirqueue orders to verified healthcare professional users who are licensedwith good standing; and displaying the answers provided by said verifiedhealthcare professional users together with the question.

In one embodiment, the method of providing quick and trustworthy answersfurther comprises processing and associating the question with the topictags or system Ill to organize the questions based on content.

In another embodiment, the method of providing quick and trustworthyanswers further comprises a step to present the user with existingsimilar questions in the system before the user submits the question.

In another embodiment, the method of providing quick and trustworthyanswers further comprises delegating the questions only to the qualifiedhealthcare professional with good standing.

In another embodiment, the healthcare professional users' files arecompletely transparent and viewable to other users. These healthcareprofessional users can be the healthcare professional users who provideanswers or healthcare professional users who agree with the answersprovided by others.

In another embodiment, the present disclosure provides a system forgenerating a system for providing quick and trustworthy answers tohealth information. In one embodiment, such computer-implemented systemcomprises steps of receiving, by the computer processor, a healthrelated question from the users; placing the question in a queue whereall unanswered questions are sequenced in reverse chronological order;delegating questions prioritized by their queue orders to verifiedhealthcare professional users who are licensed with good standing; anddisplaying the answers provided by said verified healthcare professionalusers together with the question.

In another embodiment, the present invention provides one or morecomputer-readable storage media embodying software operable whenexecuted by one or more computer systems to perform: receiving, by thecomputer processor, a health related question from the users; placingthe question in a queue where all unanswered questions are sequenced inreverse chronological order; delegating questions prioritized by theirqueue orders to verified healthcare professional users who are licensedwith good standing; and displaying the answers provided by said verifiedhealthcare professional users together with the question.

In another embodiment, the present disclosure provides acomputer-implemented method for facilitating virtual consultationsbetween a patient and a healthcare professional, comprising the stepsof: receiving, by a virtual consultation application hosted at leastpartially on a server, a request to initiate a virtual consultation froma patient using a patient computer device; receiving, by the virtualconsultation application, information input by the patient relating tothe patient's reason for the consultation; receiving, by the virtualconsultation application, attachment information provided from thepatient computer device; locating a healthcare professional available toprovide a virtual consultation via a healthcare professional computerdevice accessing the virtual consultation application; and providing, bythe virtual consultation application, a communications interface forvirtual consultation between the patient and the healthcareprofessional, wherein the communications interface facilitates at leastone of: video, audio and chat communications.

In yet another embodiment, the present disclosure provides a system forvirtual healthcare consultations, the system including a virtualconsultation application, hosted at least partially on a server andelectronically accessible over at least one network system to at leastone patient computer device and at least one healthcare professionalcomputer device. The virtual consultation application is configured to:receive a request to initiate a virtual consultation from a patientusing the at least one patient computer device; receive informationinput by the patient relating to the patient's reason for theconsultation; receive attachment information provided from the patientcomputer device; locate a healthcare professional available to provide avirtual consultation via the at least one healthcare professionalcomputer device accessing the virtual consultation application; andprovide a communications interface for virtual consultation between thepatient and the healthcare professional, wherein the communicationsinterface facilitates at least one of: video, audio and chatcommunications.

In yet another embodiment, the present disclosure provides anon-transitory computer readable medium containing instructions forproviding a method for facilitating virtual consultations between apatient and a healthcare professional enabled at least in part on aprocessor of a computerized device, wherein a virtual consultationapplication is electronically accessible by the processor and is hostedat least partially on a server and electronically accessible over atleast one network system to at least one patient computer device and atleast one healthcare professional computer device, the instructions,which when executed by the processor, performing the steps of:receiving, by the virtual consultation application, a request toinitiate a virtual consultation from a patient using the at least onepatient computer device; receiving, by the virtual consultationapplication, information input by the patient relating to the patient'sreason for the consultation; receiving, by the virtual consultationapplication, attachment information provided from the patient computerdevice; locating a healthcare professional available to provide avirtual consultation via the at least one healthcare professionalcomputer device accessing the virtual consultation application; andproviding, by the virtual consultation application, a communicationsinterface for virtual consultation between the patient and thehealthcare professional, wherein the communications interfacefacilitates at least one of: video, audio and chat communications.

Other systems, methods, features, and advantages of the presentdisclosure will be or become apparent to one with skill in the art uponexamination of the following drawings and detailed description. It isintended that all such additional systems, methods, features, andadvantages be included within this description, be within the scope ofthe present disclosure, and be protected by the accompanying claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Many aspects of the invention can be better understood with reference tothe following drawings. The components in the drawings are notnecessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon clearlyillustrating the principles of the present invention. Moreover, in thedrawings, like reference numerals designate corresponding partsthroughout the several views.

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a healthcare professionalevaluation system, in accordance with a first exemplary embodiment ofthe present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method for evaluating a healthcareprofessional, in accordance with the first exemplary embodiment of thedisclosure.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating components of an example of a system inaccordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 illustrates a Voting Page presented to the users to vote for adoctor, in accordance with embodiments provided by the disclosure.

FIG. 5 illustrates one example of a Voting Result Delivering Page wherecertain related content can also be delivered along with the VotingResult, in accordance with embodiments provided by the disclosure.

FIG. 6 is a schematic illustration of a system for providing answers touser-submitted questions, in accordance with embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating a method for providing answers touser-submitted questions, in accordance with embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 8 illustrates a webpage or other graphical user interface (the“Question Presentation Page”) presented to doctors, in accordance withembodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 9 illustrates a webpage or other graphical user interface (the“Answer Presentation Page”) which is accessible by any user of thesystem, in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 10 is a schematic illustration of a system for virtual healthcareconsultations, in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In the following detailed description of the invention, numerousspecific details are set forth in order to provide a more thoroughunderstanding of the invention. However, one skilled in the art maypractice the present invention with variation of the following details.In addition, some well-known features have not been described in detailin this description to avoid unnecessarily complicating the description.

Many embodiments of the disclosure may take the form ofcomputer-executable instructions, including algorithms executed by aprogrammable computer. However, the disclosure can be practiced withother computer system configurations as well. Certain aspects of thedisclosure can be embodied in a special-purpose computer or dataprocessor that is specifically programmed, configured or constructed toperform one or more of the computer-executable algorithms describedbelow. Accordingly, the term “computer” as generally used herein refersto any data processor and includes Internet appliances, hand-helddevices (including palm-top computers, wearable computers, cellular ormobile phones, multi-processor systems, processor-based or programmableconsumer electronics, network computers, minicomputers) and the like.

The disclosure also can be practiced in distributed computingenvironments, where tasks or modules are performed by remote processingdevices that are linked through a communications network. Moreover, thedisclosure can be practiced in Internet-based or cloud computingenvironments, where shared resources, software and information may beprovided to computers and other devices on demand. In a distributedcomputing environment, program modules or subroutines may be located inboth local and remote memory storage devices. Aspects of the disclosuredescribed below may be stored or distributed on computer-readable media,including magnetic and optically readable and removable computer disks,fixed magnetic disks, floppy disk drive, optical disk drive,magneto-optical disk drive, magnetic tape, hard-disk drive (HDD), solidstate drive (SSD), compact flash or non-volatile memory, as well asdistributed electronically over networks including the cloud. Datastructures and transmissions of data particular to aspects of thedisclosure are also encompassed within the scope of the disclosure.

While the present disclosure is described with particular respect todoctors and/or medical professionals, the present disclosure is notlimited for use in any particular profession or area of expertise;rather, the systems and methods provided herein may be advantageouslyemployed for use by other professionals or persons having particularexpertise in any given field. For example, professionals in variousfields may employ the systems and methods provided herein, including,lawyers, professors, accountants, contractors, bankers and so on

The present invention provides systems and methods to evaluatehealthcare professionals by assigning a healthcare professional anoverall value (hereinafter referred to as “Reputation Score” forconvenience and clarity, but such name does not limit the overall valueto a numeric value). The system providing such a Reputation Score can becalled “Healthcare Professional Evaluation System.”

The Reputation Score has two components: Profile Data Value and FeedbackData Value. The Profile Data Value is computed based on informationregarding a healthcare professional's merits (for example, the medicalschool, publications, years of experience, etc.). The Feedback DataValue is computed based on the feedback and endorsement the healthcareprofessional obtained from other healthcare professional users and/orpatient users (for example, the answer to a health question provided bythis healthcare professional is endorsed by other healthcareprofessionals).

The Reputation Score can be the sum of Profile Data Value and theFeedback Data Value. The Profile Data Value can be the raw Profile Datapoints or a converted value of the Profile Data points. The FeedbackData can be a weighed value of the raw Feedback Data points. TheReputation Score positively reflects each healthcare professional'soverall standing based on merits and the recognition obtained from peersand patients. The Reputation Score gives patients a way to understandeach healthcare professional's qualifications, knowledge of medicalpractices, and the quality of their engagement with patients or othermedical professions. The patient users therefore can find and selectprofessionals based on their trusted evaluations.

An important aspect of the present invention is that the present systemor method is used to evaluate a healthcare professional who is certifiedor licensed in real life. All the healthcare professionals are presentedin the social network in their real identity. The professional orpracticing records can be obtained from public domain, as well as can beinput by the healthcare professional himself/herself. Such professionalor practicing records are accessible to all users and can be stored inthe system or the server.

The Profile Data comprises a plurality of attributes indicative ofprofessional qualification and performance. After receiving the ProfileData, the Profile Data Calculation module (which may include or befacilitated by a computer processor) recognizes the categories of theabove profile data or information and assigns them to correspondingattributes (for example, the medical school information will be assignedto the attribute of Education Factor). The computer either assigns avalue based on the information under certain attributes, or treats theinformation as variables of a predesigned function to calculate thevalue under certain attributes. Value obtained from all the attributesare added and the sum value is called Raw Profile Data Value.

In one embodiment, the attributes chosen to reflect professionalqualification and performance comprise: Education Factor, TrainingFactor, Board Certification Factor, Experience Factor, PublicationFactor, Editorial Position Factor, Academic Appointment Factor, ReferralFactor, Achievements and Awards Factor, Board Discipline Factor,Conference Attendance Factor, Professional Society Participation Factor,Hospital Affiliation Factor, and the like. However, the above listedfactors are not exhaustive. Persons skilled in the art can adjust theabove factors by either adding new factors which they believe contributeto the performance, reputation and the practicing skills of thephysician, or deleting some factors if such factors are considered lessrelevant.

The second component of the Reputation Score is Feedback Data Value. RawFeedback Data value is obtained based on the feedback information of anindividual healthcare professional's engagement with other users of thesystem (e.g. other healthcare professionals or patients users). Suchfeedbacks are quantified by the computer processor. Such feedbacks maybe provided from the patient users or from peer healthcare professionalusers. In one embodiment, the feedback information from the patientusers comprise: being followed by a patient in a social network, beingrecommended by a patient user, being added by a patient as the patient'sphysician, being thanked by a patient for an answer to a health relatedquestion, or such answer being shared by the patient with friends byEmail, SMS, push notification, or on third party social network (e.g.Facebook or Twitter), being requested by the patient to make anappointment (for a doctor office visit), being voted by a patient forhaving knowledge relevant to a specific topic.

The feedbacks or recognitions obtained from other peer healthcareprofessional users may be given more weight and can be assigned a highervalue than for feedback obtained from patients. For example, if otherhealthcare professionals send a message to a healthcare professional,other healthcare professionals refer the healthcare professional'sanswer to other users or refer a question to the healthcareprofessional, other healthcare professionals add the healthcareprofessional to his or her own network, other healthcare professionalsagree with answers created by the healthcare professional, or otherhealthcare professionals recommended the healthcare professional on thenetwork, higher value points will be allocated to the healthcareprofessional. Values derived from the feedback and endorsement statedabove are added together counted toward the Reputation Score as a secondcomponent, Feedback Data value.

Again, the feedbacks and endorsements listed above are not exhaustive.Persons skilled in the art can either add more feedback and endorsementdata when they believe such feedback contributes to the performance,knowledge, credibility or practicing skills of the healthcareprofessionals. Or they can delete some of the above listed feedback dataentries for being less relevant.

The raw Feedback Data Value can be a sum of the values assigned to eachcountable activity reflecting the value of the healthcare professional'sengagement. Or such value can be calculated from functions assigned tothe countable activity based on variables that affect such countableactivity. The value or the function assigned to each feedback are notlimited to the examples provided in the embodiments. Persons skilled inthe art can assign different value to each feedback data entry. Personsskilled in the art can also design different functions to calculate thevalue of each feedback since they may believe certain variables shouldbe given different weight, or other variables should be added to such afunction to compute the value of the said feedback data. Even thoughsuch modified calculation may result different sum value, they arenonetheless covered by this invention because these calculations allreflect similar evaluation/consideration of the feedback or endorsementon the healthcare professional's engagement with other healthcareprofessionals and patients.

However, the value derived from the feedback data is not static. It willdecrease with inactivity. To avoid a decrease, the healthcareprofessional must engage in the activities at a rate earning more pointsthan the minimum participation points required. The healthcareprofessional can also restore value derived from the feedback byreengagement. Therefore, the second component of the Reputation Score,the raw feedback data value is scaled by contemporary nature. Itreflects the current feedback of the healthcare professional's presentknowledge.

Both the Profile Data and the Feedback Data Value can be converted intoa smaller range numeric value for easy understanding. In one embodiment,the Profile Data is set within range 50-85, and the Feedback Data valueis set within range 0-20. The conversion functions for Profile Data andFeedback Data can be different segmented linear functions of theirrespective raw data. Thus, the Reputation Score can be calculated to arange 0-100. However, the system can set a maximum value for theReputation Score. For example, in one example, the maximum value ofReputation Score is 99.

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a healthcare professionalevaluation system 100 (which may be referred to hereinafter as ‘system100’), in accordance with a first exemplary embodiment of the presentdisclosure. As shown in FIG. 1, the system includes multiple componentssuch as a web server 106, a Healthcare professional evaluationapplication 102, and a data storage media 104. These components aredescribed below and may be located on the same device (e.g. a server,mainframe, desktop Personal Computer (PC), laptop, mobile device (smartphone or tablet), Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), telephone, mobilephone kiosk, cable box, and an other device) or may be located onseparate devices connected by a net work (e.g. the internet, or thecloud infrastructure), with wired and/or wireless segments. Thoseskilled in the art will appreciate that there may be more than one datastorage media 104 and healthcare professional evaluation application 102running on a device.

The healthcare professional evaluation application 102 may be fully orpartially hosted on the server 106, and electronically accessible overat least one network system 108. The network system 108 may include anytype of network infrastructure, such as the Internet, or any otherwired, wireless and/or partially wired network. The server 106,application 102 and network system 108 may include a variety of hardwareand software components to provide successful functioning of the server106 and the application 102, as is well-known within the art. Further,any features, characteristics, designs and/or functions that are knownwithin the art may be included with the system 100 to further enhanceits efficiency. The application 102 may include any computer-readablememory or databases, which may be stored in any computer-readablemedium, and may be accessible by a computer processor. The application102 may further include or access computer program instructions whichmay cause a processor to perform any algorithms and/or functionsdescribed in this disclosure. The healthcare professional evaluationapplication 102 may include or have access to a Profile Data CalculationModule 103 and a Feedback Data Calculation Module 105.

The system may further include one or more patient computer devices 110and one or more healthcare professional computer devices 120. Thepatient computer devices 110 and healthcare professional computerdevices 120 may be any computerized devices capable of communicatingwith the application 102, for example via a network system 108. The oneor more patient computer device 110 may be operated by a patient user ofthe system 100, and the one or more healthcare professional computerdevices 120 may be operated by any healthcare professional (or otherprofessional), such as a primary care physician, medical doctor, nurse,medical staff or other medical professional, or any representativethereof.

The data storage media 104 is a computer-readable storage medium, whichmay be any device or medium that can store code and/or data for use by acomputer system. This includes, hut not limited to, volatile memory,non-volatile memory, magnetic and optical storage devices such as diskdrives, magnetic tape, CDs (compact discs), DVDs (digital versatilediscs or digital video discs), or other media capable of storingcomputer-readable media now known or later developed. The data storagemedia 104 may store healthcare professionals' profile information whichmay be included and accessible for display to users within the system100 as webpage profiles for the healthcare professionals.

As shown in FIG. 1, data for the healthcare professional evaluationsystem 100 may be provided from public domain, third party, existingdatabase and stored data on the web server 106. Users of patient devices110 and users of healthcare professional devices 120 may further inputdata for use by the system 100. After the Healthcare ProfessionalEvaluation Application 102 receives these data, it will process suchdata and produce a value based on the data. Such value can be numeric,in percentage, or in other form. Any form may be utilized to presentsuch value.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method for evaluating a healthcareprofessional, in accordance with the first exemplary embodiment of thepresent disclosure. The method may be performed or facilitated using theHealthcare Professional Evaluation System 100 shown in FIG. 1. Theapplication 102 receives profile data either from public domain data(which may be referred to herein as “third party data element”) or fromthe healthcare professional's own input (e.g., using healthcareprofessional device 120). The application 102 receives the feedback orendorsement data regarding the healthcare professional's activitiesthrough patient devices 110, healthcare professional devices 120 (e.g.,as input to the application 102 through the webserver 106).

The Profile Data of a plurality of attributes indicative of professionalqualification and performance are processed by the Profile DataCalculation Module 103 (STEP 202). The Profile Data Value can be a sumvalue (STEP 204) derived from the factors related to professionalqualification and performance. For example, factors taken intoconsideration can include: Education Factor, Training Factor, BoardCertification Factor, Experience Factor, Publication Factor, EditorialPosition Factor, Academic Appointment Factor, Referral Factor,Achievements and Awards Factor, Board Discipline Record Factor,Conference Attendance Factor, Professional Society Participation Factor,Hospital Affiliation Factor and so on. Different weights and/or valuesare assigned to these factors and the sum of all the result values ofeach factor constitutes the Raw Profile Data Value. However, thesefactors are not an exhaustive list, and many other factors may beconsidered when such factors contribute to or are indicative of theperformance or reputation and the practicing skills of the healthcareprofessional.

In addition, the value or the function assigned to each factor are notlimited to the examples presented in the embodiments. Persons skilled inthe art will readily understand that different values may be assigned toeach feedback data and associated factors or attributes. As such,functions to calculate the value of each attribute as provided hereinmay be adjusted such that different variables or factors are givendifferent weight, or other variables are added to such a function tocompute the said attribute. Even though such modified calculation mayresult in a different sum value, they are nonetheless contemplated bythe present disclosure, as such calculations rely on the evaluationmethods of the healthcare professional's merits as provided herein.

In one embodiment, the Education Factor is a function of the ranking ofthe medical school the healthcare professional graduated from. Thefunction can take into consideration the school's clinical ranking andthe research ranking. Every medical school the healthcare professionalhas attended contributes to this factor. The school's clinical rankingand research ranking can be obtained from public information availablevia the internet or provided by third party data, or may exist in adatabase on the web server 106 or data storage media 104 of the system100, as long as the ranking is reputable and is applied consistently toall the healthcare professionals. However, persons skilled in the artwill readily understand from the present disclosure that other variableswhich contribute to the medical school's reputation may be included tomodify the functions presented herein (e.g. the publications of theschool's faculty) and thus affect the result value of the EducationFactor. Also, the healthcare professional's academic performance duringhis/her study can be a variable affecting the result value of theEducation Factor as well.

In one embodiment, the Training Factor is a function of the ranking ofthe residency hospital and the degree the healthcare professionalobtained (for example, if the medical profession obtained a Doctorate inaddition to MD or DO or MBBS or DDS or DMD, more points will beallocated). Again, some other factors can be taken into considerationand become variables of the function as long as such factors affect thereputation of the residency program or the credibility of the degree.

In one embodiment, the Board Certification Factor is a sum value of eachBoard Certificate the healthcare professional has obtained. Either afixed value or a function can be assigned to each Board Certificationrecord. Factors like how long ago the healthcare professional obtainedsuch certificate can affect the value of the Board Certification Factor.

In one embodiment, the Experience Factor is a function of the years thehealthcare professional has been practicing. Therefore, facts like thatthe healthcare professional has suspended his practice for a period oftime can be taken into consideration and be a variable in a function. Amaximum value can be set to avoid overweighing this (or any other)factor.

In one embodiment, the Publication Factor is a function of thereputation of the journals or periodicals where the healthcareprofessional published his work. The variables included in such afunction can be the ranking of the journals or periodicals and thenumbers of articles the healthcare professional has published. Suchpublications can be obtained either from public domain, or input by thehealthcare professional himself For the healthcare professional inputinformation, the PubMed identifier or similar identifier of thepublication may be required.

In one embodiment, the Editorial Position Factor is a function of theranking of the Journal where the healthcare professional serves as aneditor and the level of the editorial position the healthcareprofessional has been serving. For example, if a medical professionalhas been an editor or associate editor of a PubMed-indexed journal, hewill obtain a higher value in Editorial Position Factor than serving onan advisory board, or be a reviewer at such a journal.

In one embodiment, the Academic Appointment Factor is a function of thelevel of the academic appointment position the medical profession hastaken and the rank of the institution the healthcare professional serveshis appointment. The higher level, for example, being a Chair of aDepartment at a top medical school will earn the medical professional amuch higher value.

In one embodiment, the Referral Information Factor is a function of thenumber of times the healthcare professional is referred and thequalification of the other healthcare professionals who referred thishealthcare professional. This information can be obtained from publicdomain and/or from the server 106 (e.g., as referral information may beinput to the system 100 by referring healthcare professionals usinghealthcare professional devices 120 and accessible by the server 106).

In one embodiment, the Achievements and Awards Factor is a function ofthe credibility of each achievement and award. The variables caninclude: how well the award is recognized by peers, the regency of theaward, the number of the awards the healthcare professional hasobtained. Sometimes, a predetermined value can be assigned to eachachievement or award. Therefore, the Achievements and Awards Factor cansimply be a sum value of points assigned to each award the healthcareprofessional achieved. For example, if the healthcare professional hasbeen listed in a selected doctor directory, a predetermined value willbe added toward the Achievements and Awards Factor. Or if the healthcareprofessional has been awarded the best doctor in 2013 in a city or town,a higher predetermined value may be added toward the Achievements andAwards Factor.

In one embodiment, the Professional Society Participation Factor is afunction of the credibility of each society the healthcare professionalhas joined. The variables can include: how reputable the professionalsociety is viewed among peers, the size of such professional society,and the number of the professional societies the healthcare professionalhas joined.

In one embodiment, the Hospital Affiliation Factor is a function of theranking of the hospital and number of the hospitals the healthcareprofessional has been affiliated with. Such hospital's ranking can befound in public domain as long as the ranking is reputable andconsistently applied on each healthcare professional.

Other such factors and profile data relevant to attributes indicative ofa healthcare professional's qualifications and performance may beincluded in the formulations provided herein for obtaining a valuereflective of a healthcare professional's overall merits and standing.

In one embodiment, the Profile Data Calculation Module 103 includes anauthentication tool which allows the healthcare professional toauthenticate his/her own profile data, and such authentication can bereflected in the Profile Data Value. For example, a multiplier (forexample, 1.1-1.8) can be assigned to the value of each attributevalidated or verified by the healthcare professional himself.Alternatively, certain points can be allocated to the healthcareprofessional if the healthcare professional validates the profile data.

The Feedback Data derived from feedback or endorsement reflectsrecognition and evaluation from peer healthcare professionals andpatients. It also reflects how appreciative the community has been oftheir advice. The Feedback Data is processed by Feedback DataCalculation Module 105 (STEP 208). In one embodiment, the Feedback DataValue is calculated as follows:

Feedback Data Value=Raw Feedback Data Points*Time Factor.

The Feedback Data Value indicates the quality, quantity, and recency ofthe healthcare professional's engagement with other healthcareprofessionals and patients. Raw Feedback Data increases incrementallywith each new unit of engagement that indicates quality. For example, ifthe healthcare professional provides an answer to a question asked by apatient and the patient shows appreciation (e.g. by sending appreciationmessage, or by recommending the answer to other people), points or valuewill be allocated to the healthcare professional. Further, if thisanswer is recognized by other peer healthcare professional, more pointswill be allocated to the answer provider.

More specifically, a value or a function may be assigned to each of thefeedback data which may then be summed, resulting in a value for rawFeedback Data Points. For example, the feedback data may include: thenumber of times a healthcare professional is “followed” within thesystem 100 by other patient users or other healthcare professionalusers, the number of recommendations the healthcare professionalobtained from patients or healthcare professional users, the number oftimes being added as other patient users' own healthcare provider (e.g.,physician), the number of office visit appointments the healthcareprofessional obtained through the system 100, the number of votes fromother users for knowing a specific topic, the number of thanks frompatient users of the system 100 the healthcare professional obtained foranswering a question or providing some medical issue related content,the number of times the answer provided by the healthcare professionalis shared by patients or other healthcare professional users with othersoutside of the system 100, for example, by Email or through third partysocial networks (e.g. Facebook or Twitter). Answers provided byhealthcare professionals in the system 100 may be shareable with suchoutside users through any known technique, including for example, byembedding tools in the pages displaying answers for emailing,republishing and sharing via social networks (e.g., “email this answer,”share on Facebook, “Like” on Facebook, “Tweet” the answer on Twitter,etc.).

However, the recognition obtained from other peer healthcareprofessionals (e.g., doctors) may be given a higher value than forfeedback obtained from patients. For example, if other healthcareprofessionals send a message to a healthcare professional to askquestions, other healthcare professionals referred the healthcareprofessional's answer to other users or refer a question to thehealthcare professional, other healthcare professionals added thehealthcare professional to their own network (e.g., by “following,” oradding to their network of healthcare professionals on the system 100),other healthcare professionals agree with the healthcare professional'sanswer, or other healthcare professionals recommend the healthcareprofessional on the system 100, a higher value can be assigned to thehealthcare professional. This list is not exhaustive. Other suchfeedback or endorsement reflecting the quality of the healthcareprofessional's activities may be considered and included in thecomputation of Feedback Data Value.

Updating profile by the healthcare professional can add value to thefeedback data as well. However, this engagement is not recognition fromothers. Nonetheless, such an action can be given a value and counttoward the Feedback Data Value to encourage a healthcare professional toupdate his file and to improve the communication between the healthcareprofessionals and the patients.

However, in one of the embodiment, the Raw Feedback Data will decreasewith inactivity. In such a case, the final Feedback Data may be obtainedby multiplying Raw Feedback Data with a Time Factor. In this way, theFeedback Data can reflect the current knowledge or responsiveness of thehealthcare professional. A rate of fall can be set and a minimumparticipation points per day can be set to make the Feedback Data Valuemaintainable. If a healthcare professional keeps inactive for a certainperiod of time, the Feedback Data will decrease, which will lead theoverall Reputation Score decrease. In order to avoid a decrease of thescore, the healthcare professional must engage activities within thesystem 100 with other peer healthcare professional and patient users ata rate earning more points than the minimum participation pointsrequired for each day.

If the healthcare professional user remains current on the system 100,then all previous content decays at a steady slow rate that is more thanoffset by ongoing activity. When the healthcare professional userbecomes inactive, a more rapid, reversible decay in the valueoccurs—this decay is reversed when the physician re-engaged andgenerates more points through activity on the site. The time decay forinactivity can be set for a sudden drop for the first short period oftime, then less value will be lost gradually over the following longerperiod of time. The physician can restore the score by re-engagement.

After the Profile Data Calculation Module 103 and Feedback DataCalculation Module 105 compute the Profile Data Value and the FeedbackData Value (Raw Feedback Data Value*Time Factor), an overall value, alsoreferred to as Reputation Score, is obtained (STEP 212). If any dataentry changes, the system/computer processor will detect the change andrecalculate the Reputation Score from the beginning (STEPS 216, 220).Before the next change is detected, the Reputation Score is assigned tothe healthcare professional (STEP 214).

Those skilled in the art, having benefit of this detailed description,will appreciate that there will be many other uses for the physicianevaluation system, and that the evaluation system may be applied toevaluate either other medical entities or other professional services(e.g. medical institutions, lawyers, and so forth.)

Definitions

The term “social network” is used herein to refer to any computingsystem that allows users to communicate or otherwise interact with eachother. The healthcare professional evaluation system 100 provided hereinis a social network. For example, such network can provide a platformfor the communication and interaction between patient users andhealthcare professionals. The patient users can ask questions and obtainanswers from qualified healthcare professionals. The healthcareprofessionals can ask questions as well and obtain answers from otherpeer qualified healthcare professionals. The patient users can uploadtheir personal health information documents and share them withdesignated healthcare professionals. The patient can also make doctorvisit appointments with designated healthcare professionals through thesystem 100. In addition, the interaction between the patient users andthe healthcare professionals can be in any form carried out by thesystem 100. For example, the patient users can send “thank you” note foranswers provided by the healthcare professionals, the healthcareprofessionals can show “agree” to answers provided by other peerhealthcare professionals. The ways of communication and interaction arenot limited to the examples explicitly listed in the present disclosure.

The term “profile” is used herein to refer to a user's profilecontaining pages and/or information visible to the public generally,information that is visible only to the user herself, informationvisible only to users specified by the user, information visible asspecified by the user, and information that may not be visible to otherusers. In one embodiment, in healthcare professionals' profiles, theinformation regarding professional and practicing records are open toall users. The users can learn a healthcare professional's expertise andexperience by viewing the content in the healthcare professional'sprofile. In a healthcare professional's profile, a user can find notonly the registration and license information, but also information likethe expertise, the geographic location, the publication, and even theanswers to health related questions the healthcare professional hasprovided before. To the contrary, a patient user's profile can choose tobe private and not viewable to other users. Only with the permissionfrom the patient user, a healthcare professional can access the patientuser's health information or the medical documents the patient uploaded.

Other factors or variables not specifically cited or referenced in thepresent disclosure may also be included in the functions provided hereinwithout limiting the scope of the claimed invention. Accordingly, otherfactors or variables may be further used to be part of the function toevaluate the healthcare professionals. It should further be noted thatthe present disclosure contemplates that weights indicated inassociation with the various factors or variables may also be adjustedas additional factors are added or as necessary to provide a moreaccurate evaluation.

The term “patient,” “patient user” or the like is used herein in a broadmeaning to refer to any person or any entity seeking health informationutilizing the systems provided herein. The patient can ask questionsregarding any aspect of healthcare. Any patient can be the user of asocial network.

The term “healthcare professional” is used herein to refer to anymedical practitioner providing healthcare services of any kind, or anykind of services appurtenant to healthcare. The healthcare professionalsinclude any doctor, group practice, and/or any professional providing orcapable of providing healthcare services While the present disclosurepresents exemplary embodiments with specific reference to “healthcareprofessionals” and “patients,” the present invention is not so limited;the systems and methods herein may be employed by various otherprofessionals and potential users/clients, including lawyers/clients,teachers/students, accountants/clients, contractors or any other serviceproviders and recipients thereof.

The term “doctor” is used herein in its broadest meaning to refer to anymedical practitioner or healthcare professional providing healthcareservices of any kind, or any kind of services appurtenant to healthcare.The plural form of doctors includes any doctor, group practice, anyprofessional other than a physician providing or capable of providinghealthcare services. Such a doctor can be a dentist, an optometrist, atherapist, a chiropractor, and anyone else who provides healthcareservices to the user within the medical field.

The term “overall value” is used herein to refer to a value generated bya computer processor based on the healthcare professional's professionalachievements, qualifications and performance (i.e. Profile Data), andfeedback and endorsement (i.e. Feedback Data) the healthcareprofessional received in the system 100. For convenience, sometimes theoverall value is also called “Reputation Score” without limiting thescope or meaning of the overall value to any specific formality. Theoverall value can be presented in numeric value, or in other preferredform, such as percentile, letters, words, symbols, icons or the like.The overall value can be based on a sum of the raw value of Profile Dataand the raw value of Feedback Data. The overall value can also beconverted to a smaller numeric value (or any other form) forpresentation to users and ease of understanding. The overall value canbe a segmented function to the raw value of Profile Data and of Feedbackor Endorsement Data, separately or collectively.

The term “Feedback Data Value” is used herein to refer to a weighed sumvalue of all countable feedback or endorsement data (see FIG. 2, STEP208). The accumulation is based on the feedback or the endorsement thehealthcare professional received in the system 100. The Feedback DataValue decays slowly in the absence of new contributions.

The term “attributes indicative of professional qualification andperformance” is used herein to refer any consideration that contributesto the healthcare professional's performance in the healthcare field andis included in Profile Data. It may include, but is not limited to,board certification, education, practicing experience, publications,referral information, training, editorial positions, academicappointments, awards, professional society participation, boarddiscipline record, the involvement in malpractice litigation,affiliation to a hospital, and other achievements and awardsconsiderations. This term is not limited to the attributes listed aboveor in the embodiments. Persons skilled in the art will readilyunderstand that other such considerations may contribute to thehealthcare professional's qualification and professional performance andthus may be included in Profile Data.

The term “third party” is used herein to include a patient, an insurancecompany, a healthcare organization, a professional organization, agovernment, and any organization that collects or provides access tohealthcare-related information.

The scope of the invention is not limited to any of these definitions orto specific examples mentioned therein, but is intended to include themost general concepts embodied by these and other terms.

Example: Evaluating a Healthcare Provider by Providing a ReputationScore

This example illustrates systems and methods to evaluate a healthcareprovider (e.g., a doctor) by assigning the healthcare provider aReputation Score (in numeric value) based on the healthcare provider'sprofessional achievements and the engagement recognized by patients andother peer healthcare providers. However, the following embodiment isonly an exemplified application of the present invention, the describedsystems and methods below are completely applicable to otherprofessionals and/or service providers. The Reputation Score representsa healthcare provider's overall standing, based on merits and feedbackfrom other healthcare providers and patient users. The Reputation Scorehas two components: Profile Data Value and Feedback Data Value. TheReputation Score can be calculated as follows:

Reputation Score=Profile Data Value+Feedback Data Value

The above Reputation Score can be obtained by either summing the rawProfile Data Value and raw Feedback Data Value. Or, the Reputation Scorecan be a sum of weighed Profile Data Value and weighted Feedback DataValue. The weighted Profile Data Value and weighted Feedback Data Valuecan each be obtained through a segmented linear function of thecorresponding raw Profile Data Value and raw Feedback Data Valuerespectively. In this example, the segmented linear function is designedto give the initial contributions (i.e., initial activity/interaction inthe system 100 by healthcare professionals) more weight to encourage thehealthcare professionals' engagement. Once the Reputation Score reachesa certain predetermined level (e.g., a score of “70” out of a possible99), the healthcare professional must increasingly engage in activitieson the system 100 in order to gain successive points of the ReputationScore.

I. Conversion of Raw Profile Data Points to Profile Data Value and theRaw Feedback Data Points to Feedback Data Value

In this example, the Reputation Score is set to be in a range of 50-100for easy understanding when provided to users. Within this rage, theProfile Data Value is set to contribute about 50-85 points, and theFeedback Data Value is set to contribute about 0-20 points. Thefunctions for converting both Profile Data Value and the Feedback DataValue are not pure linear functions, but segmented linear functions.These converting functions are designed in a way that the initialaccumulation of the points takes less effort than later phases. Thisapproach will encourage the initial involvement of the healthcareprofessional users. However, as described below, when the Profile DataValue and Feedback Data Value are close to their full value, moreefforts and contribution needed to bring the healthcare professionalusers to be among the best healthcare professional users (e.g. havingthe highest Reputation Score).

The Reputation Score may be limited by a maximum value. For example, thesum of the raw Profile Data Points and the raw Feedback Points may havea value which would produce a corresponding converted Reputation Scorethat would exceed the maximum Reputation Score; however, if such maximumReputation Score value is set, the following formula can be used to setup the maximum of the Reputation Score (e.g., limiting the ReputationScore to a maximum of 99 points):

Reputation Score=Min(Profile Data Value+Feedback Data Value,99)

The above mentioned functions converting the raw values to the weightedvalues are not pure linear functions, but segmented linear functions,such that in each successive segment, proportionate increases inconverted value (i.e. Profile Data Value or Feedback Data Value) requiresuccessively greater increases in raw values (i.e. raw Profile DataValue and raw Feedback Data Value). For example, a first linear segmentmay correspond with a range of converted value from 55 to 60 and mayrequire an increase of raw values (x) to produce an increase of onepoint converted value (e.g., from 55 to 56, 56 to 57, and so on up to60). In a second linear segment (e.g., corresponding with a range ofconverted value from 60 to 70), increasing one point of converted value(e.g., from 60 to 61, 61 to 62, and so on up to 70) may require somemultiple of x (A*x, where A>1), such as one and one-half times theincrease of raw values (1.5×) as required within the first segment.Similarly, increasing one point of converted value in a third linearsegment (e.g., corresponding with a range of converted value from 70 to80) may require an even greater multiple of x (B*x, where B>A), such asthree times the increase of raw values (3×) as required within the firstsegment. Any number of linear segments, each corresponding to ranges ofconverted values, may be included.

Thus, the initial contributions (e.g., as supplied by a healthcareprofessional's initial interactivity within the system 100) may beweighted highest. For example, to obtain the first points of theconverted Reputation Score (e.g., starting from 50 and increasing to55), the healthcare profession may needs only a small increase (e.g.,150 points) in raw score. The first few answers provided by thehealthcare profession in the system 100 causes a rapid climb inReputation Score. The climb in later segments (e.g., from 70 to 90) ofthe Reputation Score may require a modest effort by the healthcareprofessional to engage in activity on the system 100 (e.g., calibratedto about a month of substantial engagement). The highest scores (e.g.,scores above 90) become progressively more difficult to achieve, and mayrequire significant effort over a prolonged period of time in engagingin activity on the system 100—a rise in converted Reputation Score from95 to 99, for example, may require an increase of 800,000 points of theRaw Reputation Score.

The Raw Profile Data Points and the Raw Feedback Data Points may beconverted separately into Profile Data Value and Feedback Data Value.Then the converted scores are added together to obtain the ReputationScore.

II: Calculation of Raw Profile Data Value

Since much of the healthcare professionals' qualification information ispublic, the Profile Data can be obtained from the public domain (alsocalled “third party” data element). Such information can be accessedand/or stored in the system 100 and to be used match with the ProfileData information input by the healthcare professional. The Raw ProfileData Value is a sum of values calculated under each attribute indicativeof professional qualification and performance. For example, suchattributes can include: Education Factor, Training Factor, BoardCertification Factor, Experience Factor, Publication Factor, EditorialPosition Factor, Academic Appointment Factor, Referral Factor,Achievements and Awards Factor, Professional Society ParticipationFactor, Hospital Affiliation Factor. Different values and functionscalculating such values are assigned to these factors and the sum ofthese points constitute the Raw Profile Data Score.

However, the above listed factors is not a exhaustive list, many otherfactors may be considered when such factors contribute to theperformance or reputation and the practicing skills of the healthcareprofessional, for example, board discipline record, conferenceattendance and other such factors. A numeric value can be given to someof the above factors and be added to the Raw Profile Data Value. Personsskilled in the art can assign different numeric values to each of theabove factors to obtain a different sum value, but reflects similarevaluation/consideration of the healthcare professional's merits.

In addition, different functions may be implemented to calculate thevalue of each attribute, as it may be desirable to include certainvariables and weight them differently. Even though such modifiedcalculation may result different sum value, they are nonetheless coveredby this invention because these calculations all reflect similarevaluation/consideration of the healthcare professional's merits.

A healthcare professional may verify the Profile Data in the system 100,for example, by signing into the healthcare professional's account inthe system 100 using healthcare professional computer device 120. Byverifying the third party element information, the healthcareprofessional can obtain an increased value or weight (e.g., 10%)assigned to each third party data element that has been verified asvalid by himself:

Raw Profile Data Score(for a doctor registered in the network)=(1.1)*RawProfile Data Score generated by the system before verification

The overall Raw Profile Data Value is a sum of the points calculated andadded by the computer processor under each of the following parameters:

Raw Profile Data Score=f(Education Factor)+f(Training Factor)+f(BoardCertification Factor)+f(Experience Factor)+f(PublicationFactor)+f(Editorial Position Factor)+f(Academic AppointmentFactor)+f(Referral Factor)+f(Achievements and AwardsFactor)+f(Professional Society Participation Factor)+f(HospitalAffiliation Factor).

1. The Education Factor:

In this example, the Education Factor is a function of the clinicalranking and the research ranking of the medical school the healthcareprofessional graduated from. Every medical school the healthcareprofessional has attended will contribute to this factor. The school'sclinical ranking and research ranking can be obtained from internet,third party, or existing database on the web server 106 of the system100, as long as the ranking is reputable and is applied consistently toall the healthcare professionals. The Education Factor can be calculatedby the following formula:

Education Factor=[(A-clinical rank)*B+(A-research rank)*C] _(School 1)+. . . +[(A-clinical rank)*B+(A-research rank)*C] _(School n)

-   -   where, A=the number of ranked schools, or may be set to any        fixed value,    -   B=a fixed weighting factor for the clinical ranking component of        the Education Factor, and    -   C=a weight factor for the research ranking component of the        Education Factor.

A maximum number of points can be set to adjust the weight of theEducation factor, or any other factor, in the overall Profile DataValue.

2. Training Factor:

In this example, the Training Factor is obtained by assigning value toeach residency, fellowship and degree that the doctor completed. TheTraining Factor is determined by the following formula:

Training Factor=completion of a residency(x points)+completion of afellowship(y points)+completion a Doctorate in addition to MD or DO orMBBS or DDS or DMD(z points).

The values assigned to the various components of this factor (e.g., x, yand z) may be adjusted to give different weight to different degrees andobtain a value similarly reflected the training the healthcareprofessional obtained.

3. Board Certification Factor:

The Board Certification Factor can be a sum value of each BoardCertificate the healthcare professional has obtained. Either a fixedvalue or a function can be assigned to each Board Certification record.Factors like how long ago the healthcare professional obtained suchcertificate can affect the value of the Board Certification Factor. Inone example, if the healthcare professional obtained Board Certificationfrom American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) or American OptometricAssociation (AOA) specialty, a specific number of points will beallocated. With specialty certification, for each additionalcertification, additional points will be given.

4. Experience Factor:

In this example, the Experience Factor is determined by years since thehealthcare professional graduated from medical school, or by years ofactive practice. The formula is as follows:

Experience Factor=Annual experience points*years since graduation

This factor can be assigned a maximum value to adjust its weightcounting toward Personal Profile Data.

5. Publication Factor:

In this example, the Publication Factor is determined as follows:

Publication Factor=u points*number of Peer-reviewed publications+vpoints*number of additional publication

A maximum value may be set for the Publication Factor. When thepublication is entered by the healthcare professional, a PMID may berequired (PubMed identifier or PubMed unique identifier). The system 100will update the publications of the healthcare professional byfrequently obtaining updates from public accessible publicationdatabase.

6. Editorial Position Factor:

If a healthcare professional has been an editor or associate editor of aPubMed-indexed journal, a number of points are allocated. Further pointsmay be allocated for being an advisory board of a PubMed-indexed journaland for being a reviewer of a PubMed-indexed journal.

7. Academic Appointments Factor:

If a healthcare professional has been an instructor at a medical school,a number of points may be allocated. Points may further be allocated forbeing a faculty at a medical school and for being a chair of Departmentat medical school.

8. Referral Factor:

The Referral Information Factor is a function of the number of times thehealthcare professional is referred and the qualification or reputationof the other healthcare professionals who referred the healthcareprofessional in real life. Or certain points can be given to eachreferral, and a sum of the points will be the value for this ReferralFactor. This information can be obtained from public domain or from theserver 106.

This Referral Factor is different than the referral a healthcareprofessional obtained within the system 100, for example, under theFeedback data. Those referral data are calculated under the Feedbackdata because the referral a healthcare professional user obtained iswithin the social network system, e.g. other healthcare professionalusers referring healthcare professional to other patients to answertheir questions.

9. Achievements and Awards Factor:

In this example, points will be given if the healthcare professional hasobtained some recognition or awards. For example, if he appears on aselected doctor directory, a certain number of points will be allocated.If the directory is more reputational or prestigious (for example, theUS News doctor ranking, the American's top doctors list), a higher scorecan be given.

10. Professional Society Participation Factor:

The Professional Society Participation Factor can be a function of thecredibility of each society the healthcare professional has joined. Thevariables can be how reputable the professional society is viewed amongpeers, the size of such professional society, and the number of theprofessional societies the healthcare professional has joined. Also afixed value can be assigned to each organization the healthcareprofessional participates in. For example, if the healthcareprofessional is a member of a doctor society, a number of points will beassigned. For each of additional member status, further points will begiven

11. Hospital Affiliation

Based on the public information or the healthcare professional's input,if a healthcare professional affiliates with a best/top hospital (e.g.rank within top 17), a number of points will be allocated. If ahealthcare professional is affiliated with a great hospital (e.g. rank1-100), points may be assigned. For rest listed hospitals on certainranking a healthcare professional affiliated, a less number of pointsmay be assigned. For an unlisted hospital or no affiliation to anyhospital, 0 points is given. The above mentioned ranking system can beany public accessible and reputable ranking system, as long as such useis consistent.

III. Calculation of Raw Feedback Data Value

The Raw Feedback Data Value indicates the quality, quantity, and recencyof the healthcare professional's engagement in the system 100. RawFeedback Data Value increases incrementally with each new unit ofengagement that indicates quality. For example, if the healthcareprofessional provides an answer to a question provided by a patient andthe patient shows appreciation (e.g. by sending appreciation message, orby recommending the answer to other people), points will be allocated tothe healthcare professional. Further, if this answer is recognized byother peer healthcare professionals, more points will be allocated tothe answer provider healthcare professional.

In this example, not all activities the healthcare professional usersengage in are accountable. Only activities related to the quality of theengagement are counted toward Raw Feedback Data Value. For example, whenthe patient users followed a healthcare professional, recommended ahealthcare professional, added a healthcare professional as hisphysician or healthcare provider, requested an appointment with thehealthcare professional, voted for the healthcare professional forknowing a specific topic, thanked the healthcare professional for ananswer, or shared the answer with friends either by Email, or on thirdparty social network (e.g. Facebook or Twitter), certain points will beallocated to the answer providing healthcare professional.

Further, the recognition obtained from other peer healthcareprofessionals will be given higher value. For example, if otherhealthcare professionals send a message to a healthcare professional,other healthcare professionals referred the healthcare professional'sanswer to other users or refer a question to the healthcareprofessional, other healthcare professionals added the healthcareprofessional to their own network within the system 100, otherhealthcare professionals agreed with the healthcare professional'sanswer, or other healthcare professionals recommended the healthcareprofessional on the system 100, higher value points will be allocated tothe healthcare professional.

Updating a healthcare professional's profile may cause an increase ofpoints in the raw Feedback Data Value. This is mainly a measure toencourage a healthcare professional to update his file and improve thecommunication between the healthcare professionals and the patients.

The following table provides a list of accountable activities or events,each of which are associated with items to count for countingoccurrences of such activities or events and are further associated withsome amount of points to be allocated for each occurrence:

TABLE 1 Accountable actions and events toward the raw Feedback DataPoints, each associated with some amount of allocated points. Action orEvent Items to count Being shared on by Email and #shares by users ofthis doc's on other third party social content network Being thanked ona general # thanks received from users question for answers Beingfollowed by a patient #followers (users) Users recommend a doc to #recommendations for this other users doc, from users, sent to otherusers Being added to a user's network # users who added doc to theirnetwork Being thanked with a note #thankyou notes received Other doctorssend a message # messages received by doc to this doctor, from otherexperts Being thanked on a private #thanks received for private messagemessage responses Vote received for knowing a # votes for knowing aspecific specific topic (users) topic received from users Other doctorsrefer a question # questions received by this for answering to thisdoctor doctor as referrals from experts Being added as a patient's#users listing this doctor as doctor their physician Being requested foran doctor #doctor appointment requests appointment through networkreceived Vote received for knowing a # votes for knowing a specificspecific topic (experts) topic received from experts Doc completes theprofile Key profile fields completed (minimum set required) (Aboutdescription, specialty selected, contact information filled out, specialareas of expertise/interest) Doctor completes the profile Uploaded photopresent on and adds a photo profile Being agreed with # Agrees receivedfor items of content(tips, answers, guides) authored by the doctor Beingadded to another # other doctors who added this doctor's network doctorto their networks Being recommended by # recommendations for thisanother doctor on the social doctor, from other doctors network

As shown in Table 1, even though many activities can count toward rawFeedback Data Points, activities like simply commenting on an answerwithout agreeing with the answer may not accumulate points for thehealthcare professional.

However, the Raw Feedback Data Value will decrease with inactivity. Incomparison, the Profile Data Value is mostly stable (changes only happenwhen the healthcare professional has a new publication, or win a newaward, etc., which will not happen on daily basis). Therefore, RawFeedback Data Value will cause the frequent changes of the ReputationScore value. Such decrease associated to inactivity under Feedback datavalue can be designed to be a continuous decay of total points that mustbe kept up with or the Raw Feedback Data Value will fall (slowly).

If the healthcare professional cannot keep up with the minimumparticipation score per day, the healthcare professional user accountwill be treated inactive. In this situation, the Time Factor will startplaying roles to affect the Feedback Data Value. More specifically, theFeedback Data Value can be computed by the following formula:

Feedback Data Value=Raw Feedback Data Points*TimeFactor.

Time Factor:

Time Factor reflects the activeness of a healthcare professional user ofthe system 100. When a healthcare professional becomes inactive on thesystem 100, a rapid, reversible decay in the score occurs. This decaywill be reversed when the healthcare professional re-engages andgenerates more points through activity on the system 100. The time decayfor inactivity may produce a significant drop over some initial periodof inactivity (e.g., inactivity over the first 30 days may result inlosing 50% of the Feedback Data value), then loses another value (e.g.,40%) over another period (e.g., the next 11 months), reaching andremaining at 0.1 after one year of inactivity.

In addition, a multiplier may be associated with the status of ahealthcare professional, and can be assigned to the healthcareprofessional and contribute to the raw Feedback Data calculation. Forexample, if a healthcare professional is listed in a selected directory(e.g., a doctor directory, etc.), he can be assigned to have a 1.4multiplier and the accumulation of the raw Feedback Data Points will befaster. In this situation, the healthcare professional's Feedback DataValue could be calculated as follows:

Feedback Data Value=Raw Feedback Data Points*Time Factor*StatusMultiplier

As described above, when the healthcare professional becomes inactive, arapid, reversible decay in the Feedback Data Value occurs. However, thisdecay is reversed when the healthcare professional re-engaged andgenerates more points through activity on the system 100. The healthcareprofessional can restore the Feedback or Endorsement Score byre-engagement. Upon re-engagement, the Raw Feedback or Endorsement Scorereturns to the previous value diminished only by the decay of pointsequal to some unrecoverable amount of decay representing a requiredminimum participation per day times number of days since last activity,for example:

Recovered Raw Feedback Data Value=Raw Feedback Data Value before thedecay(the inactivity)−minimum participation required/day*number of dayssince last activity

While the Reputation Score is discussed herein primarily with respect toa numerical value, the Reputation Score may alternatively be representedby a symbol, such as stars. In an embodiment, the Reputation Scoreranges from 0 to 5 stars, reflecting the peer-recognition that thehealthcare professional has received within the system 100, as well asrelevant public and other information, as described above, which mayinclude: agrees, votes and recommendations from other healthcareprofessionals; years of experience; quality of healthcare professionswho refer them; education information; board certifications; otherprofessional accomplishments; and thanks, votes and recommendations frompatient users. The number of stars (or other symbol) to be given to aparticular healthcare professional may be based on a numerical result(e.g., as discussed above), with ranges of numerical values beingassociated with the number of stars to be given (e.g., 0-20=0 stars;21-40=2 stars; 41-60=3 stars; 61-80=4 stars; 81-100=5 stars).

Referrals or Votes Provided to Healthcare Professionals

In further embodiments, the present disclosure provides systems andmethods to allow expert users (e.g., “professionals” or the like) toidentify areas of interest and expertise for purposes of identifyingthemselves to third parties as having knowledge and interest in thesetopics, and for interacting with a system that provides them with anopportunity to display their expertise and express their interestthrough creating content (including in the form of answering questions)on these topics.

FIG. 3 is a schematic illustration of a healthcare professionalevaluation system 30 (which may be referred to hereinafter as ‘system30’), in accordance with embodiments provided by the present disclosure.The system 30 includes one or more user computer devices 310 (describedherein as “patient computer devices”), one or more healthcareprofessional user computer devices 314 (described herein as “doctorcomputer devices”), a web server 300 and data storage media 304. A userend 308 (e.g. web browser displayable on a computer device) providesuser interface, through which the users can cast votes or search andaccess content they are interested in, as well as search doctors. Theweb server 300 is electronically accessible through at least one networksystem 306 to multiple computer devices (e.g., patient user computerdevices 310, healthcare professional user devices 314). The networksystem 306 may include any type of network infrastructure, such as theInternet, or any other wired, wireless and/or partially wired network.

The server 300 may be or include any database capable of storing and/orproviding access to information, such as an electronic database, acomputer and/or computerized server, database server or generally anynetwork host capable of storing data and connected to any type of datanetwork. Further, the server 300 may include or be a part of adistributed network or cloud computing environment. Any type ofelectronic and/or computerized device that is capable of storinginformation may be included as the server 300, and is considered withinthe scope of this disclosure. The server 300 may includecomputer-readable storage media, and a processor for processing data andexecuting algorithms, including any of the processes and algorithms setforth in this disclosure.

Web server 300 hosts, fully or partially, or otherwise accesses multipleapplication logic components (e.g. a Votes Processing Module 302). As isunderstood by persons skilled in the relevant art, modules shown in FIG.3 may represent sets of executable software instructions as well as thecorresponding hardware (e.g., memory and processor) for executing theinstructions. The server 300, votes processing module 302, and networksystem 306 may include a variety of hardware and software components toprovide successful functioning of the server 300 and the module 302, asis well-known within the art. Further, any features, characteristics,designs and/or functions that are known within the art may be includedwith the system 10 to further enhance its efficiency.

The system 30 may further include one or more patient computer devices310 and one or more doctor computer devices 314. The patient computerdevices 310 and doctor computer devices 314 may be any computerizeddevices capable of communicating with the server 300, for example via anetwork system 306. The one or more patient computer devices 310 may beoperated by a patient user (which may be any user who votes using thesystem 30 or otherwise seeks information related to professional usersof the system 30, and need not be an active patient of any treatingphysician or medical caregiver) of the system 30, and the one or moredoctor computer devices 314 may be operated by any doctor user of thesystem 30 (which may be any user who may be evaluated using the system30, and may include any healthcare professional, such as a primary carephysician, medical doctor, nurse, medical staff or other medicalprofessional, or any representative thereof).

The data storage media 304 is a computer-readable storage medium, whichmay be any device or medium that can store code and/or data embodying orused by any one or more of the methods or functions described herein.This includes, but not limited to, volatile memory, non-volatile memoryincluding by way of example semiconductor memory devices, e.g., ErasableProgrammable Read-Only Memory (EPROM), Electrically ErasableProgrammable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM), and flash memory devices,magnetic storage such as internal hard disks and removable disks andoptical storage devices such as disk drives, magnetic tape, CDs (compactdiscs), DVDs (digital versatile discs or digital video discs), or othermedia capable of storing computer-readable media now known or laterdeveloped. The data storage media 304 may be included in, orelectronically accessible by, the web server 300.

While the computer-readable medium is shown in some embodiments to be asingle medium, the term “computer-readable medium” may include a singlemedium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database,and/or associated caches and servers) that store the one or moreinstructions or data structures. The term “computer-readable medium”shall also be taken to include any tangible medium that is capable ofstoring, encoding or carrying instructions for execution by the computerand that cause the computer to perform any one or more of themethodologies of the present invention, or that is capable of storing,encoding or carrying data structures used by or associated with suchinstructions.

Set Topics or Practicing Areas for Users to Cast Vote on

The topics or practicing areas for voting on can be identified by thedoctor himself. The doctor can either identify his practicing area or anarea of interest where he has done some research or had a publication inthe related area. If the doctor did not identify the above area duringthe registration process, the system 30 can also establish such list oftopic or practicing area based on the doctor's specialty and peerreviewed publications. In one embodiment, the users (e.g., patientusers) also have an option to add a new area to vote for the doctor.Such options can be shown in the last box and the voters may fill in newcontent identifying a new topic or practicing area (as shown in FIG. 4).

However, when the system 30 generates such list for the users to vote,there may be some practices or topics which are related, but describedin a different term. The system 30 has a processing module 302 toorganize such different inputs, merge related topics and provide topicswhich are distinctive from each other.

Differentiate the Votes from Doctors and Votes from Patients

It is important to differentiate the votes from licensed medicalprofessionals and regular patient users, as each type of user may havemore informed or otherwise relevant input. For example, patient votesmay be particularly relevant with respect to a doctor's bedside mannerevaluation. However, when it comes to evaluating the practicing skillsof a doctor, patients might lack professional knowledge to provide moreobjective evaluations.

To that end, an authentication module may be included within the system30 to verify the users who identify themselves as healthcareprofessionals. The authentication module may be included in or otherwiseaccessible to the Votes Process Module 302 and may include or access adatabase (e.g., stored in data storage media 304) having a directory ofmedical professionals in U.S. and other data related to professionalperformance of each licensed medical professional. When medicalprofessionals register or sign in the system, the authentication modulegenerally requires the user to verify the existing information in thesystem and provide more information related to his professionalperformance. However, to guarantee the accuracy and currency of themedical professionals' qualification, all medical professionals arescreened for credentials based on the public information released byimpartial third party or public registered information, for example,each state's licensing board. Such information may be stored in thesystem 30 (e.g., in data storage media 304), and may be frequentlyupdated in responding to the newly released public information. When amedical professional is verified by the system 30 to be currentlyqualified to practice, the system 30 will allow the medical professionalto cast votes or agree on other medical professionals' answers.

Voting User Interface

FIG. 4 illustrates one example embodiment of the Voting Screen the usersmay interact with. This page can be accessible through a graphitic userinterface element. In the center of this page, the medicalprofessional's name and specialty is clearly identified. Under thedoctor's name, there are multiple boxes listing the topics or practicingareas that the users can cast votes on. These voting topics orpracticing areas are decided by either the doctors themselves or by thesystem 30 based on the doctor's publication and other relatedinformation (e.g. specialty board certificate).

However, a vote from patient users is calculated separately from a votecasted by credentialed doctors. The votes from patient voters arecategorized as bedside manner votes under each topic or practicing area(shown in FIG. 5, Section 1). The votes from patients do not provideresources of where these votes are collected from. However, for thevotes from credentialed doctors, the system 30 not only provides thenumber of total votes, but also provides an access for the users (bothdoctors and patients) to find out which doctors casted votes for thepresent doctor (e.g., the doctor being displayed to the user). This notonly provides transparency of the voting process, but also improves thecredibility of the voting results. For example, if a doctor is voted bymany doctors in the same field or practicing area, the patient will findsuch voting demonstrated the reputation of the doctor in the pertinentfield. Also when the voting source is transparent, the comments willtend to be more objective.

The basis for the voting can be either from the real life experience,for example, doctor visit, or from reading the content generated by thedoctor, for example, the answers provided by the doctor and solicited bythe patients on a social network. In either situation, such rating isbased on actual knowledge of the doctor's practicing skills andknowledge.

Presentation of Votes

The votes casted by the users are processed by the Votes ProcessingModule 302 before being presented in the Voting Result PresentationPage. FIG. 5 illustrates an example embodiment of the Voting ResultPresentation Page. Section 1 presents the topics or the practicing areasthat a doctor obtained votes upon. For instance, in this example, thedoctor obtained votes on topics of Hip Pain, Vaccinations, Diabetes, ACLInjuries and Bee Stings. As stated before, the votes from doctors andfrom the patients are calculated separately. For example, under thetopic Hip Pain, the present doctor received 50 doctor votes and 50member votes (votes from non-healthcare professional users). Suchdivided source of votes helps users appreciate the recognition thedoctor received among peers, at the same time also acknowledge thecommunication skills the doctor has with patients.

Second, the identities of all of the 50 doctors casting votes for thepresent doctor are transparent to the users. For example, the user cansimply click the 50 doctor votes and learn who voted for the presentdoctor under the Hip Pain topic.

Third, the votes are calculated locally, statewide and nationally (e.g.nationwide, state wide, or locally). If the doctor obtains top number ofvotes locally (for example, within top 10 in a local area), suchinformation will be provided in that specific category of specialty ofpracticing area (e.g. FIG. 5, Section 1, below “Diabetes”). If thedoctor has top number of voting nationally (for example, with in top 20national wide), such information will also be presented under thatcategory (e.g. FIG. 5, Section 1, below “Vaccinations”). This is helpfulfor the patients who are looking for a local doctor that he can make adoctor visit and do follow up examination. A national top voting of adoctor may help a patient make decisions in seek specific medicalservice when he/she have a very complicated disease or health issue.

Section 3 shows related areas of expertise and other topics that adoctor is known for, but did not receive votes in these practicing areasyet. Section 4 shows the basic information about a doctor includingFirst and Last name, specialty, Board Certification, DocScore (can be aexternal doctor evaluation system showing the doctor's professionalreputation or skills), Photo, and graphical user interface elements forconnecting with this doctor.

Last, such voting result can be presented together with other contentprovided by the doctor, for example, the answers, tips or posts thedoctor provided before, the license information or publication list thedoctor has, or network information the doctor has connection with(Section 5). Further, the voting results may be presented together withother statistics of the present doctor, for example, the statistics ofhow many “doctor agrees” the doctor received when he provided answers tothe questions posted by the users, how many thanks the doctor receivedfrom the patient users when he provided such answers, or the number ofdoctor and patient followers they have (Section 2). Also how responsivethe doctor is may also be presented (responsiveness). Such evaluationcan be based on the percentage of the questions the doctor answered outof the number of questions being given by the system.

The system 30 can also provide a measure to evaluate the quality of thecontent the doctor rendered. For example they system will give thedoctor medals when certain content received many “thanks” from thepatients, e.g. a brown medal for over 5 thanks, a silver medal for over10 “thanks,” and a gold medal for over 15 “thanks” (the bottom sectionof Section 2).

Such collected information based on different source provides a user acomprehensive understanding of the present doctor's performance andpracticing skills, where the patients have more source to learn aboutthe present doctor and decide whether he will follow up with the doctorfurther, for example, ask one to one question or make a doctor visitappointment.

In addition, such voting result can be presented also with other rankingor rating results based on different approach or basis. For example,there could be another separate system evaluate the doctor solely basedon the merits of the doctor (e.g. where he obtains education, whatpublications he have), and presented together with the votes. Therefore,the users have an understanding of how the doctor is evaluated by thepatients, as well as by the peer doctors.

Providing Answers to User-Submitted Questions

In further embodiments, the present disclosure provides systems andmethods for providing trustworthy answers to health questions (orquestions in any other field of knowledge) in an efficient and timelymanner. Various aspects of the inventive methods and systems providedherein aims at increasing the reliability of the answers to health (orother) questions and reducing the response time. The present inventionenables any patient (or other users) to solicit answers for health (orother) questions in a social network setting. Moreover, users may searchand view existing questions (as well as related answers) related todesired topics or areas of practice.

In accordance with embodiments provided herein, the answers aredelivered solely by professionals having verified qualifications (e.g.,licensed doctors) and in good standing within their respectiveprofession. These answers are also curated by other qualifiedprofessionals (e.g., doctors). Other professionals (e.g., doctors) canshow they agree with the answers and thus affect the credibility of theanswer. The more “agrees” an answer obtains, the more prioritized (i.e.higher ranking) the answer is presented to users in a list of answers.In addition, the answer will be provided promptly. In one embodiment,the answer will be supplied within 24 hours.

FIG. 6 is a schematic illustration of a system for providing answers touser-submitted questions 60 (which may be referred to hereinafter as‘system 60’), in accordance with embodiments provided by the presentdisclosure. The system 60 includes one or more user computer devices 610(described herein as “patient computer devices”), one or moreprofessional user computer devices 614 (described herein as “doctorcomputer devices”), a web server 600 and data storage media 620. The webserver 600 is electronically accessible via at least one network system630 to multiple user ends (e.g., patient user end having one or morepatient computer devices 610; doctor user end having one or more doctorcomputer devices 614). The network system 630 may include any type ofnetwork infrastructure, such as the Internet, or any other wired,wireless and/or partially wired network.

The server 600 may be or include any database capable of storing and/orproviding access to information, such as an electronic database, acomputer and/or computerized server, database server or generally anynetwork host capable of storing data and connected to any type of datanetwork. Further, the server 600 may include or be a part of adistributed network or cloud computing environment. Any type ofelectronic and/or computerized device that is capable of storinginformation may be included as the server 600, and is considered withinthe scope of this disclosure. The server 600 may includecomputer-readable storage media, and a processor for processing data andexecuting algorithms, including any of the processes and algorithms setforth in this disclosure.

Web server 600 hosts, fully or partially, or otherwise accesses multipleapplication logic components (e.g. a Queue Management Module 602,Question Processing Module 604, Content Recommendation Module 606 andAuthentication Module 608). As is understood by persons skilled in therelevant art, modules shown in FIG. 6 may represent sets of executablesoftware instructions as well as the corresponding hardware (e.g.,memory and processor) for executing the instructions. The server 600,modules 602, 604, 606, 608, and network system 630 may include a varietyof hardware and software components to provide successful functioning ofthe server 600 and the modules 602, 604, 606, 608, as is well-knownwithin the art. Further, any features, characteristics, designs and/orfunctions that are known within the art may be included with the system60 to further enhance its efficiency.

The system 60 may further include one or more patient computer devices610 and one or more doctor computer devices 614. The patient computerdevices 610 and doctor computer devices 614 may be any computerizeddevices capable of communicating with the server 600, for example via anetwork system 630. The one or more patient computer devices 610 may beoperated by a patient user (which may be any user seeking health-relatedinformation, and need not be an active patient of any treating physicianor medical caregiver) of the system 60, and the one or more doctorcomputer devices 614 may be operated by any doctor user of the system 60(which may be any user to whom access to provide answers to pendingquestions has been granted, and may include any healthcare professional,such as a primary care physician, medical doctor, nurse, medical staffor other medical professional, or any representative thereof).

The data storage media 620 is a computer-readable storage medium, whichmay be any device or medium that can store code and/or data embodying orused by any one or more of the methods or functions described herein.This includes, but not limited to, volatile memory, non-volatile memoryincluding by way of example semiconductor memory devices, e.g., ErasableProgrammable Read-Only Memory (EPROM), Electrically ErasableProgrammable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM), and flash memory devices,magnetic storage such as internal hard disks and removable disks andoptical storage devices such as disk drives, magnetic tape, CDs (compactdiscs), DVDs (digital versatile discs or digital video discs), or othermedia capable of storing computer-readable media now known or laterdeveloped. The data storage media 620 may be included in, orelectronically accessible by, the web server 600.

While the computer-readable medium is shown in some embodiments to be asingle medium, the term “computer-readable medium” may include a singlemedium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database,and/or associated caches and servers) that store the one or moreinstructions or data structures. The term “computer-readable medium”shall also be taken to include any tangible medium that is capable ofstoring, encoding or carrying instructions for execution by the computerand that cause the computer to perform any one or more of themethodologies of the present invention, or that is capable of storing,encoding or carrying data structures used by or associated with suchinstructions.

Authentication of the Doctors' Credentials

In the system 60, answers are provided exclusively by licensed doctorswith good standing. The good standing status requires that no sanctionsor disciplinary restrictions are in effect against the doctor. Neithercan the doctor be a defending party in any open malpractice suit. Theterm “doctor” is used herein in a broader meaning to refer to anymedical practitioner or healthcare professional providing healthcareservices of any kind, or any kind of services appurtenant to healthcare.Further, while the present disclosure is described for exemplarypurposes with respect to doctors and patients, the present invention isnot limited for use in any particular profession or area of expertise.Rather, the systems and methods provided herein are applicable to users(i.e. those submitting questions) and professionals or persons havingparticular expertise (i.e. those providing answers) in any given field.

Users without a license to practice medicine or doctor users withoutgood standing status do not have access to answer the questionspresented by users of the system 60. Thus, it is important to verify theidentities of those users who claim they are doctors with good standing.To this end, the system 60 includes an authentication module 608 toverify the users who identify themselves as doctors licensed to practicemedicine in certain jurisdiction and in good standing in thatjurisdiction.

The authentication module 608 includes or has access to a database(e.g., stored in data storage media 120) including directories ofdoctors and other data related to professional performance of eachlicensed doctors. When a doctor registers or signs in the system 60, theauthentication module 608 may require the doctor user to verify theexisting information in the system 60 and provide further informationrelated to his professional performance. However, to guarantee theaccuracy and currency of the doctors' qualification, all doctors arescreened by the authentication module 608 for credentials based oninformation released by impartial third parties or public registeredinformation, for example, each state's licensing board (shown in FIG. 7,Step 216). Such information is stored in the system 60, and isfrequently updated to include newly released public information.

If the doctor passes the screening and is validated by theauthentication module 608 to answer questions, the authentication module608 will grant the doctor access through the system 60 to provideanswers to pending questions. Such grant of access to the questions isrevocable and conditioned on the current good standing status of thedoctor. If the doctor's good standing status changes and does notsatisfy the requirement anymore, the system will block the doctor'saccess to pending questions and such blocking will remain in place untilthe good standing status is resumed.

In addition, some or all of the doctor's information related to merits,practicing skills, and professional performance may be transparent toall the users (i.e. patient users and doctor users). The doctor'sidentity (e.g., name, photo, location, specialty and/or any otheridentifying information) will be presented next to the answer heprovided. Through clicking the doctor's profile photo, the users canaccess the doctor's profile and learn more about the doctor's skills andcredentials. The complete transparency fosters the trust between doctorsand patients using the system 60 and encourages the interaction amongthe doctors and the patients. Further, when a doctor agrees with ananswer already provided by another doctor user in the system 60, hisidentity will also be shown next to the answer. The users can similarlylearn more about the doctors who agreed with the answer and what aretheir professional credentials.

Registered users (e.g., patient and doctor users) of the system 60 haveprofiles, which are well-known in social networks and related fields.The profiles may be a profile containing pages and/or informationvisible to the public generally, information that is visible only to theuser herself, information visible only to particular users specified bythe user, information visible as specified by the user, and informationthat may not be visible to other users. The doctors' profiles aregenerally visible to all of the users of the system 60. All users canview the doctors' profiles and can find out the doctors' credentials.

Question Processing Module

When a user inputs a question or key words (e.g., using an input boxprovided by the system 60 and displayed in a graphical user interface ofthe user's computer device 610) to solicit answers, the string contentin the input box will be processed by the Question Processing Module 606(FIG. 7, Step 202) and key words will be extracted. Techniques foridentifying and extracting key words are known within the relevantfield, and any such techniques may be utilized for key word extractionby the Question Processing Module 606. The key words are then associatedby the Question Processing Module 606 with single or multiple predefinedtopic tags which may be stored, for example, in a database in datastorage media 620. Such topic tags may include collections of diseasenames, treatment methods, diagnosis, surgical procedures, hot topics,areas of practice and the like. The topic tags can be associated withclosely related terms either by meaning or formality, such that thetopic tags applied to variable forms of terms referring to the sametopic. For example, the topic tags may be associated with misspellings,singular and plural forms and different expression of the same term.Thus, closely related terms regarding a specific topic can be organizedtogether by topic tags. The system 60 has stored a great accumulation ofthese topic tags and these topic tags are further organized by Group ID.

The Group IDs are the next higher level of organized subjects than thetopic tags and may be stored in a database in data storage media 620 andassociated with relevant topic tags. In one embodiment, the Group IDsmay be disease names, with each Group ID being associated with acollection of topic tags related to symptoms, conditions, side effects,treatment, procedures and medications for the disease. Such a higherlevel organization of information is important for functions providingrelated content in various situations, as the related content can beextracted from the pool of content sharing the same group IDs.

The association relationships between a question, topic tags and GroupID are stored (e.g., in data storage media 620) together with thequestion and their answers. The questions are organized by the topictags and the Group ID and will be extracted by the Question ProcessingModule 606 from the database based on the patient user's request (e.g.presenting similar questions before the user proceed to post thequestion). For example, when a user wants to search some specificcontent, he can just input a key word and the Question Processing Module606 will recognize that key word and match it up with the existing tagsand extract related questions and answers from the database and displaythe related content. If there are no close existing tags, the system 60can provide content sharing the same Group IDs with the requestedcontent.

Providing Answers in a Timely Manner

It is important that the answers to health questions be provided in atimely and efficient manner. Questions related to health care often needto be answered quickly. Some actions might need to be taken promptlyregarding certain health concerns. The patient often would significantlybenefit from a quick answer, and an untimely answer may be of little orno use. A quick answer also helps reduce the anxiety caused by somesuspicious symptoms. The system 60 prevents, or significantly reducesthe likelihood of, questions from sitting in the system 60 for longperiods of time without being answered. In an embodiment, all thequestions will be answered within 24 hours from being posed by users inthe system 60. To assure the questions are answered promptly, the system60:

-   -   a. Reduces traffic by presenting similar questions and answers        to the user before the user proceeds to post a new question;    -   b. Organizes questions in a reverse chronological order where        the oldest question in the system is placed on the top of the        question list presented to the doctors;    -   c. Sends questions to doctors who are specialists in areas        relevant to the questions, and improve the efficiency of the        system;    -   d. Provides similar unanswered questions to the doctor after the        doctor provides an answer to a question;    -   e. Gives the doctors awards or credits for answering additional        questions or questions that are needed to be answered urgently.    -   f. Messages the patient user to give him/her the choice to        modify the question if the question has not been answered for a        long time.

1. Reduce Traffic by Presenting Similar Questions to the User Before theUser Posts a New Question.

The system 60 can guarantee questions being answered within a shortperiod of time, e.g. 24 hours. One way the system 60 can efficiently andpromptly provide answers promptly is by avoiding processing (i.e.,sending to doctors) questions that have already been answered in thesystem 60. In one embodiment, the users (mainly patient users) will bepresented with a list of questions which are identified by the system 60(e.g., by the Question Processing Module 606) that are either similar orrelated to the question the user just posted.

The related questions may have been previously answered and stored inthe system 60 (e.g., in Data Storage Media 620) together with associatedtopic tags and Group IDs, assigned by the Question Processing Module606. Their related answers are tagged and categorized separately aswell. The previously answered questions that are displayed to the userare selected based on relevancy. The relevancy is determined by thesystem 60 (e.g., by the Question Processing Module 606) throughanalyzing the topic tags associated with existing questions stored inthe system 60 and those associated with the present question. The moretopic tags a previously answered question and the present question havein common, the higher the degree of relevancy the system 60 willdetermine to exist between the previous question and the presentquestion.

In addition, each answer may be assigned an Answer Score. Answer Scorereflects the confidence in the content of the answer. The Answer Scoremay be based on a variety of factors, including: a. the reputation ofthe author; b. “agrees” the answer obtained from other doctor users; c.“thanks” the answer received from patient users; d. number of times thatthe answer has been shared with other users; e. the length of the answer(the longer answer has more details and will be given higher score).Such an Answer Score can be a function of any combination of the abovefactors. The factors can be given different weights in computing theAnswer Score. The Answer Score may be generated by the QuestionProcessing Module 606, or by a separate tool contained within the system60.

The list of related previous questions will be presented to the user(e.g., displayed on the patient computer device 610) in a ranked orderbased on both the relevancy of the topic tags and the value of theAnswer Score. A highly related question having an associated answer witha high Answer Score will be ranked highly, and thus shown on top of aRelated Questions Presentation Page. However, the user makes the finaldecision as to whether the proposed question is already sufficientlyanswered or not. In one embodiment, after being presented with existingrelated questions and/or their associated answers on the RelatedQuestions Presentation Page, some users might decide that theirquestions already have been answered and stored within the system 60,and they will not proceed to post the question. In this way, some amountof traffic, data storage and redundancy will be reduced. However, if theuser decides his question has not been answered, the system 60 willallow the user to proceed to post his/her new question.

In general, the user can post questions for any doctor to answer.However, to increase efficiency, in one embodiment, the system 60 sortsthe questions and sends the questions to doctors who claim specialty inrelated area or practice. The system 60 can also allow the user todesignate a specific doctor to answer the question.

2. Organize Questions in a Reverse Chronological Order where the OldestQuestion in the System is Placed on the Top of the Question List—QueueManagement

The Queue Management Module 602 (FIG. 6) operates to organize theto-be-answered questions in the system based 60 on the time the questionis submitted. Therefore, the longer the question sits unanswered in thesystem 60, the higher priority will be assigned to this question to beprocessed (i.e. answered) by the system 60. In addition, QueueManagement Module 602 also operates to select to-be-answered questionsand present them to individual doctor users. With the organization bythe Queue Management Module 602, the doctor users will not see a verylong list of unanswered questions (e.g., a list of all pendingunanswered questions). Rather, the doctor will see only those questionsselected for the doctor by the Queue Management Module 602 (e.g., basedon the doctor's specialty, location or other relevancy consideration) onthe Question Presentation page (shown in FIG. 8).

The Queue Management Module 602 compiles the to-be-answered questionslist based the following considerations: a. Time of submission: theoldest questions are given priority to be presented on the QuestionPresentation Page; b. The patient user's special request for a fastanswer: upon a user's request to process the question faster, thisquestion will be marked and automatically moved up to or near the top ofthe list; c. Relations to the specialty the doctor claimed: QueueManagement Module 602 will send questions to the doctor within hisspecialty by default; d. The geographic location of the doctor: theQueue Management Module 602 will automatically send the questions todoctors who has closer geographic location to the patient user whoposted the question; e. Whether the doctor has provided similar contentor answers to similar questions before: the Queue Management Module 602will send to the doctor questions that he has shown knowledge on.

3. Send Questions to Doctors Who are Specialized in the Area or Practicethe Questions Related and Reduce the Responding Time

The doctor can specify fields that he/she has expertise or feels morecomfortable answering questions in. If the doctor user does not claim aspecialty, the system 60 will assign a specialty tag to the doctor basedon his/her licensing information and publications. The specialty tag maybe associated with the doctor, for example, in the doctor's profilewhich may be stored in a database in or accessible to the system 60.Such specialty tag allows the Queue Management Module 602 to only sendthe doctor questions related to his specialty and let the doctor answerquestions he feels more comfortable with. However, such specialtyscreening is optional and the doctor has a choice at the QuestionPresentation Page to view either the questions solely from his ownspecialty or from all fields.

4. Show the Doctors Similar Questions after the Doctor Answered RelatedQuestions

In addition, after a doctor answers one question, a list of similarunanswered questions can be presented to the doctor in a pushed message(e.g., the Queue Management Module 602 may push such questions to thedoctor's user device 614). Such a list of similar questions obtainedthrough the same sorting and organizing techniques as described withrespect to presenting a Related Questions Presentation Page to theusers.

5. Provide Awards or Credits to Doctors for Answering High Priority orAdditional Questions.

An award system may be established to encourage the doctors to answermore questions, especially when the unanswered questions in the system60 are backlogged. As shown in FIG. 8 (section 2), the doctors areprovided an opportunity to gain an award or credits (e.g., bonus doubledaily participation points) by answering one more questions. Further,bonus points may be allocated to doctor users for answering highpriority or urgent questions in the system 60. Such bonus points may beutilized to increase a doctor's status or ranking in the system 60, ormay be provided to a doctor evaluation system or recommendation systemwhich may utilize the doctor points as a factor in evaluating, rankingor recommending doctors. The system 60 may be integrated with orotherwise communicatively coupled with such an evaluation orrecommendation system, thereby providing benefit to the doctors whoanswer questions on the system 60 by facilitating an increased status orranking.

6. Message the Patient User to Give him/her the Choice to Modify theQuestion if the Question has not been Answered for a Long Time.

In one embodiment, the system 60 monitors questions in view of a timelimit within which questions should be answered. Such time limit can bedecided based on the traffic volume of the server. When a question isnot answered within this time limit, the system 60 will send a messageto the question posting user to remind him/her that his/her questionsare still not answered. The system 60 can also give the user a choice tomodify the questions and try again.

Answer Presentation Page

After a question is answered, the answer will be processed by the systemand presented to the patient user on the Answer Presentation Page (e.g.,when the user logs into the system 60 using a patient device 610) (shownin FIG. 9). The Answer Presentation Page is also accessible by otherusers by searching key words. In addition, the system 60 can alsopresent related contents to the question on the Answer PresentationPage. For example, top doctors in related practicing area, relatedhealth tips, related medication information, and so on may be presentedto the user on the Answer Presentation Page.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating a method for providing answers touser-submitted questions, in accordance with the first exemplaryembodiment of the present disclosure. As shown at Step 200, a user canpost a question through the user interface provided on the patientdevice 610. At Step 202, the questions are received and processed by theQuestion Processing Module 606 after it is input by the user and the keywords are extracted from the input content. The key words are thenmatched with topic tags which are previously generated and stored in thesystem 60. If one or multiple matches are established, such tags will bethen assigned to the question and the association relationship will bestored in the data storage media. Such association can be based oncontent match between the keywords and the tags because the inputquestion in the box is received as a string which is a systemrecognizable formality.

These topic tags can recognize misspellings, singular and plural formsand different expression of the same term. Thus the topic tags organizeand correctly categorize the questions under the same topic tags eventhough the key words from the questions may be misspelled or expressedin a different term.

For example, a patient user inputs a question: “what can be the cause ofchest pain and short of breath?” The system 60 then extracts thekeywords “cause,” “chest pain” and “short of breath” from the questionand matches them with the existing tags. “Chest pain” and “short ofbreath” themselves can be existing topic tags. Or another topic tag suchas “heart attack” can be assigned to this question because chest painand shortness of breath are typical symptoms of heart attack. If theuser misspelled “chest pain,” the system can 60 still recognize it andassociate the question with the right topic tag, “chest pain.” Inaddition, the system 60 can also associate the medical term “myocardialinfarction” with the topic tag “heart attack” where the former is amedical term of “heart attack” used by the doctors. Further, the system60 might also associate the question with topic tags like“pericarditis,” “hypertrophic cardiomyopathy,” or “mitral valveprolapse,” because chest pain is a common and possible symptom for thesediseases as well.

After the first level of labeling, the question can be further assignedto a Group ID, for example, “cardiovascular disease.” And this“cardiovascular disease” Group ID may include content, questions andanswers related to the symptoms, treatments, procedures, medication,health tips, diet suggestions and the like for cardiovascular disease.

Therefore, in the above example, the topic tags “cause,” “chest pain”,“short of breath,” “heart attack,” “pericarditis,” “hypertrophiccardiomyopathy,” and “mitral valve prolapse” can be assigned to theprovided question. At the same time, this question is also assigned aGroup ID, “cardiovascular disease.” The topic tags used in the examplesherein are not exhaustive, and persons skilled in the relevant fieldwill readily understand that other such topic tags may be applied tosort questions by topics and thus associate and organize relatedquestions together.

The Group IDs are important for rendering similar or related content onthe Answer Presentation Page. Since the content rendered related to thequestions are all belonging to the same Group IDs.

After the system 60 processes the question, it will proceed to send thequestion to doctors and solicit answers. However, before sending thequestion to doctors, the system 60 takes some measures to efficientlyprocess and generate answers to the questions. First, in order to speedanswer delivery, unnecessary traffic should be avoided, e.g. avoidprocessing questions which have been answered before or in which similarissues have been addressed. Therefore, the system 60 provides users(mainly patient users) an opportunity for a second thought beforeposting the question. This step includes presenting the patient userswith a list of questions which are identified by the system 60 (e.g. bythe Question Processing Module 606) that are either similar or relatedto the question the user just posted (FIG. 7, Step 204). These existingrelated questions are stored in the system 60 (e.g., in Data StorageMedia 620) together with their associated tags and topics. The QuestionProcessing Module 606 organizes these existing questions based on themultiple tags associated with them assigned by the system 60.

The delivery of the similar questions (and their answers) requires thesystem 60 derive a list of existing questions that are most related tothe question posted. Such relevancy is computed by the system 60 throughanalyzing and matching the tags between the existing questions and thepresent question. The list of related previous questions will bepresented in a descending order of relevancy. For example, the similarquestions and answers that have exactly the same tags with the postedquestion will be presented first. Then the similarity of the tags willbe analyzed and the existing questions sharing most closely related tagswill be presented second. If a question cannot be matched with similarquestions based on the relevancy of the tags, the content within thesame Group ID as the input question will be presented to the user.

After being presented with previous questions, the user has an option tomake the final decision to decide whether his or her question has beenanswered or not. In this embodiment, after reviewing the presentedexisting answers, some users might decide that their questions alreadyhave been addressed and they will not proceed to post the question. Inthis way, at least certain amount of unnecessary traffic will be reducedand the system 60 saves time and space to provide answers to questionsthat have not yet been answered. However, if the user decides hisquestion has not been answered, the system will allow the user toproceed to post his/her own question.

After the question is posted by the user and processed and tagged by thesystem 60, it will be placed in a queue in reverse chronological orderby Queue Management Module 602 (Step 206). Then the Queue ManagementModule 602 will selectively send questions to doctors based oninformation about the doctors stored in or accessible to the system 60(e.g., doctor profile data). Such selective presentation of thequestions to the doctors allows for more efficient and higher qualityanswers to the questions, as the questions provided are tailored to thedoctor's interests and specialties (e.g. sending doctor the questionsasked by the patients from the same city or community) and the doctorscan answer the question more efficiently and willingly. The questionsare only presented to, and accessible by, doctors who are licensed andin good standing (Step 208). Credential information can be obtained atstep 216 and the doctor's good standing can be authenticated, at step218. At Step 210, the questions will be presented to the doctors on aQuestion Presentation Page (shown in FIG. 8).

FIG. 8 is an illustration of a webpage or other graphical user interface(the “Question Presentation Page”), which may be presented to doctorsusing the system 60. The Question Presentation Page includes a textinput box 801 which may be utilized by a doctor user to input text, notonly to provide answers, but also to post a question on their ownbehalf, or alternatively, enter keywords to search for questions,topics, users, or other content. Under the text input box 801, there isa frame (section 3) soliciting health tips (meaning short,doctor-written notes in areas like beauty, diet, exercise or parenting,which may be provided to users when logged into the system 60, or may bedelivered by text message or e-mail) from the doctors. Questions to beanswered are listed below the text box (Section 4). Options to provideadditional answers to the questions already answered and to indicateagreement with already-provided answers may also provided on theQuestion Presentation Page (Section 5).

Section 4 of the Question Presentation Page exemplifies how questionsare presented to the doctors. Even though there is only one questionshown in Section 4 of the Question Presentation Page, there may be morethan one such unanswered questions presented to the doctors in Section4. Such a list of unanswered questions can be questions only related tothe doctor's specialty (claimed by himself/herself or assigned by thesystem), or related to different specialties. The system 10 can have adefault setting to send the questions to a doctor only within thedoctor's specialty.

The questions presented to the doctors are sorted and provided by QueueManagement Module 602 and are ordered based on the followingconsiderations:

a. Time of submission: if a question was sitting in the system 60 for along time, it is more likely to be sent to the doctor and more likelyshows up on the top of the list of the questions on the QuestionPresentation Page.

b. The patient user's special request for a fast answer: the system 60can set an option for the user to request for a fast answer. Upon such arequest, this question will be tagged and automatically be processedfirst and placed on the top of the question queue presented on theQuestion Presentation Page.

c. Relation to the specialty the doctor claimed: As stated before, thedoctor can identify his specialty or the system 60 can assign him aspecialty. If the doctor does not specify whether he wants to receivethe question within his own specialty only, the system 60 will sendquestions to the doctor within in his specialty by default. However, thedoctor can choose to answer questions outside of his specialty. In asituation where a question has been sitting for a long time in thesystem 60, the doctor may be offered an award for providing an answer.

d. The geographic location of the doctor: As shown in FIG. 8, the doctorcan see the geographic location of the user who solicits the answer. Inaddition, the system 60 (i.e. the Queue Management Module 602) willpreferably send the questions to doctors who have closer geographiclocation to the patient user who posted the question. This function willendorse the communications between the patient and the doctor users inthe same geographical area, which will create opportunities for thepatient to find a doctor he/she likes within the same or closecommunity. Similarly, doctors can develop future business through suchcommunication.

e. whether the doctor has previously provided similar content or answersto similar questions: Since all the question and answers are tagged inthe system 60, the answers and health tips the doctor provided can berecorded in the system 60. If a doctor provides some health relatedcontent or answers under certain topic tags, the system 60 will treatthe doctor as being knowledgeable in this special topic or subject(e.g., by associating the doctor with particular topic tags). Thus, thesystem 60 may send the doctor questions closely related to what he hasshown knowledge on.

After processing the questions, the Queue Management Module 602 willselect certain question and send them to specific doctors based on theabove consideration. These questions also are presented in a specificsequence or arrangement as a result of weighing some or all of the aboveconsiderations. This can be achieved by assigning a value, or a functionto calculate such a value, to each consideration. As such, each questionmay obtain a sum value of the points computed under each considerationand the sum value determines the sequence of the questions presented tothe doctor.

In addition, the system 60 may show the time the question was provided(top left corner in Section 4) so the doctor knows how old the questionis. Also as shown in FIG. 9, there are also options for the doctor torefer the question to another doctor if he/she believes the other doctoris a specialist and is a better candidate to answer the question. Thisfunction helps direct the question to the doctor with right specialtyand reduces the responding time.

Section 5 of FIG. 8 also shows questions that are already answered byother doctors. The doctor can either provide another answer in Section 5or he can agree with the existing answers. This will help evaluatecredibility of an answer provided by a doctor.

After a question is answered by one or many doctors, the answers will besent back to the server 600 and stored, e.g., in data storage media 620.The system 60 will process these answers and assign topic tags and aGroup ID to each answer, as described herein. After being processed andcategorized, the answers will be presented to users on a AnswerPresentation Page (Step 212).

FIG. 9 illustrates a webpage or other graphical user interface (the“Answer Presentation Page”) which is accessible by any user of thesystem 60. As shown in FIG. 9, there are two answers provided byqualified doctors (Sections 2 and 3). This is only an exemplified way toshow how the answers are presented. Each question may have many answersprovided by the doctors. The sequence of how the answers are presentedmay be based on an Answer Score.

The Answer Score is a numeric or other value the system 60 assigns toeach answer to reflect a level of confidence in the content of theanswer. The Answer score is obtained based on: a. the reputation of theauthor of the answer; b. “agrees” the answer obtained from other doctorusers; c. “thanks” the answer received from the patient users; d. timesthat the answer has been shared by users; e. the length of the answer(the longer answer has more details and will be given higher score).Such an Answer Score can be result value of a function of the abovevariables. Above variables can be given different weight towardcomputing such an Answer Score.

In addition, the answers provided by the doctor users are separatelyassociated with topic tags based on the content of the answer and suchtopic tags are presented together with the answer (FIG. 9, Section 2 andSection 3, bottom line of boxes). This is similar to the process oftagging the questions. The system 60 will extract key words from theanswers and process and match them with topic tags. After associatingtopic tags with the answer and recording such association in the system60 (e.g., by storing the answer and associations with topic tags in datastorage media 620), the system 60 is able to extract the answer whensuch answer are requested related to the topic tag. For example, in thestep of presenting similar questions to the user before the userproceeds to post the question, not only the question is searched, butanswers matching the topic tags are also searched and presented to theusers. A related question with an associated answer having a high AnswerScore will be more likely to be presented (or to be ranked higher orotherwise given priority in the sequence of presented answers) to theuser on the Answer Presentation Page.

Further, the answers are presented along with the identity of thedoctors who provided the answer. As shown in Section 2 and Section 3 ofthe Answer Presentation Page, the doctor's name and picture arepresented along with the doctor's answer to the proposed question. Inaddition, a direct link to access the doctor's profile on the system 60is provided to allow the patient learn the doctor's credentials.Further, if the patient user is satisfied with the doctor's answer andwants to follow up, ask more questions or make an appointment for adoctor visit, the system 60 provides the patient access to do so.

There is also a showing of the “agrees” (i.e. an indication of agreementwhich may be provided, for example, by clicking a button labeled“agree”) the doctor's answer received from other doctors. On top rightcorner of Section 2 in FIG. 9, it shows how many doctors have agreedwith the answer and these “agreeing” doctors' identities are alsoprovided to the user. By clicking any of the “agreeing” doctor's profilepicture listed in the top right corner in Section 2 and Section 3 ofFIG. 9, the user can learn more about each of “agreeing” doctors'identity and credibility in medical practice.

As shown in FIG. 9, Section 2 and Section 3, a “Thank” graphical userinterface element is provided and the patient user can click it toexpress appreciation to the doctor who delivers the answer. The numberof “Thanks” the doctor receives is counted by the system 60. On onehand, such “thanks” count can be a factor used by the system 60 toevaluate the doctor's performance. If a doctor receives more thanks, thesystem 60 generates a more favorable evaluation of the doctor. On theother hand, such “thanks” can also contribute to evaluate the quality ofthe answer. As stated above, the more thanks the answer receives, thehigher Answer Score the answer will receive which will move the answerup in the showing queue (i.e. the answer will be ranked higher, thuscausing the answer to be provided higher priority in the sequence ofanswers displayed to users).

In Section 1 of FIG. 9, next to the question, the user is also given anoption to “follow” the question. By following a question, a user may beautomatically notified by the system 60 of the updates related to thisspecific question. For example, if new answers are provided under thisquestion, the user will be automatically notified of these new answers.Such notifications can be provided to users through the system 60, forexample, by displaying the notification on a patient user device 610when logged into the system 60, or may be provided by email, text or anyother such electronic notification technologies.

Other than the answers to the question on the Answer Presentation Page,there are also other related content rendered to help the user acquire acomprehensive understanding of the pertinent issue (FIG. 7, step 214).For example, the top doctors in related practicing area (Section 4),related questions (Section 5), and related topics (Section 6) may bepresented on the Answer Presentation Page. The Content RecommendationModule 604 will accomplish this task.

The list of top doctors presented on the Answer Presentation Page isprovided based on matching the doctors' specialty with the topic tags.Further, doctors can be evaluated by their professional performance andthe recognition the doctor received from other users. Any doctorevaluation or ranking system may be accessed by the ContentRecommendation Module for obtaining relevant evaluation information. Thetop doctors (e.g., as determined based on evaluation or rankinginformation) having a matching specialty will be presented on the AnswerPresentation Page.

The related questions and related topics are provided by the ContentRecommendation Module 604 which matches the topic tags associated withthe content (i.e. the content of information stored in data storagemedia 620, such as questions/answers, GroupIDs, topics, etc.) with topictags associated with the questions. The more similar topic tags sharedby the content and the questions, the more possibility the content willbe presented on the Answer Presentation Page. In the situation that aquestion does not have content sharing matching tags, content under thesame identifiable Group ID can be presented.

Virtual Consultations

In further embodiments, the present disclosure provides systems andmethods for virtual consultations between a patient and a healthcareprofessional.

FIG. 10 is a schematic illustration of a system for virtual healthcareconsultation 1000 (which may be referred to hereinafter as ‘system1000’), in accordance with embodiments provided by the presentdisclosure. As shown in FIG. 10, the system 1000 includes a virtualconsultation application 1002 hosted at least partially on a web server1006, and data storage media 1004. These components are described belowand may be located on the same device (e.g. a server, mainframe, desktopPersonal Computer (PC), laptop, mobile device (smart phone or tablet),Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), telephone, mobile phone kiosk, cablebox, and another device) or may be located on separate devices connectedby a net work (e.g. the internet, or the cloud infrastructure), withwired and/or wireless segments.

The virtual consultation application 1002 may be fully or partiallyhosted on the server 1006, and electronically accessible over at leastone network system 1008. The network system 1008 may include any type ofnetwork infrastructure, such as the Internet, or any other wired,wireless and/or partially wired network. The server 1006, application1002 and network system 1008 may include a variety of hardware andsoftware components to provide successful functioning of the server 1006and the application 1002, as is well-known within the art. Further, anyfeatures, characteristics, designs and/or functions that are knownwithin the art may be included with the system 1000 to further enhanceits efficiency. The application 1002 may include any computer-readablememory or databases, which may be stored in any computer-readablemedium, and may be accessible by a computer processor. The application1002 may further include or access computer program instructions whichmay cause a processor to perform any algorithms and/or functionsdescribed in this disclosure. The virtual consultation application 1002may include or have access to one or more virtual consultation databaseswhich may be stored, for example, in data storage media 1004.

The system may further include one or more patient computer devices 1010and one or more healthcare professional computer devices 1020. Thepatient computer devices 1010 and healthcare professional computerdevices 1020 may be any computerized devices capable of communicatingwith the application 1002, for example via a network system 1008. Theone or more patient computer device 1010 may be operated by a patientuser of the system 1000, and the one or more healthcare professionalcomputer devices 1020 may be operated by any healthcare professional (orother professional), such as a primary care physician, medical doctor,nurse, medical staff or other medical professional, or anyrepresentative thereof.

The data storage media 1004 is a computer-readable storage medium, whichmay be any device or medium that can store code and/or data for use by acomputer system. This includes, but not limited to, volatile memory,non-volatile memory, magnetic and optical storage devices such as diskdrives, magnetic tape, CDs (compact discs), DVDs (digital versatilediscs or digital video discs), or other media capable of storingcomputer-readable media now known or later developed. The data storagemedia 1004 may store virtual consultation related information,including, for example, profile information for healthcare professionalsavailable for virtual consultation, as well as profile and/orhealth-related information for patient users of the system.

The virtual consultation application 1002 provides an interface for livevideo, voice and/or chat, as well as email-based inbox consultationsbetween patients (using patient computer device 1010) and a healthcareprofessionals (using healthcare professional computer device 1020).

Patients may initiate a virtual consultation with a healthcareprofessional user of the system 1000 by logging into or otherwiseaccessing the virtual consultation application 1002 using a patientcomputer device 1010. The application 1002 may request the patient toinput information in. response to questions or other prompts in order toacquire background information and/or documentation for use by ahealthcare professional during the virtual consultation. For example,the application 1002 may first request that the user provide inputinformation describing the reason for the virtual consultation. Thepatient may then enter information (e.g., using a keyboard or otherinput device) to describe the problem or questions for which he isseeking consultation with a healthcare professional.

The application 1002 may further provide the patient with an interfacethrough which to attach a file, for use by a healthcare professionalduring the virtual consultation. For patient computer devices 1010having an integrated or associated camera, photos may be taken orselected from the device 1010 photo gallery and then attached for useduring the virtual consultation. Other files which may be available onthe patient computer device 1010 (e.g., health-related records or otherdocuments) may be selected by the patient and uploaded for attachmentand use during the virtual consultation.

After receiving the reason for the patient's visit and/or anyuser-selected attachments, the application 1002 may allow the patientuser to select whether a live consultation or an “inbox” or email-basedconsultation is desired. Selecting a live consultation initiates a livevirtual consultation via video, voice and/or chat with a healthcareprofessional using a healthcare professional computer device 1014.Healthcare professionals (e.g., physicians) may be online and activelyavailable for virtual consultations through the application 1002, or maybe scheduled to be available on an “on-call” basis.

When the patient user submits a request for a live virtual consultation,the application 1002 may attempt to connect the patient with ahealthcare professional based on the patient's input reason for theconsultation (e.g., by selecting a healthcare professional havingparticular expertise or training in the field of the patient's problemsor questions), the order of the patient with respect to other patientsrequesting a virtual consultation, whether the patient is a priorityuser of the system (e.g., a subscribing or paying user—there may bedifferent tiers of subscription, for example) and/or any combination ofsuch considerations. Further, the patient may select a particularhealthcare professional with which to conduct a virtual consultation, inwhich case the patient may be notified when the healthcare professionalwill be available for consultation, and the application 1002 may furtherprovide a scheduling tool to schedule the virtual consultation at alater time should that healthcare professional not be available at thetime of the patient's request.

While the patient waits for the application 1002 to match the patientwith a healthcare professional (e.g., by contacting the healthcareprofessional through computer device 1014 using an electronic message,prompt or the like), the application 1002 may display to the userinformation related to the patient's input reason for the virtualconsultation. For example, the application may access information storedin data storage media 1004 to find answers to related questions orproblems.

Once a healthcare professional has been contacted and accepted therequest for a virtual consultation, the application 1002 provides aninterface for the live consultation to take place between the patient(using patient computer device 1010) and the healthcare professional(using healthcare professional computer device 1014). The interface mayinclude a video feed of the patient and/or healthcare professional(e.g., from a camera accessible by the patient device 1010 and/orhealthcare professional device 1014), audio feed (e.g., from amicrophone accessible by the patient device 1010 and/or healthcareprofessional device 1014) and/or a chat interface for text-based chatcommunication between the patient and the healthcare professional.Further, the interface provided by the application 1002 allows thehealthcare professional to receive the attachments provided by thepatient via the patient computer device 1010.

During the virtual consultation, the application 1002 may provide thehealthcare professional with various tools for documenting andperforming the consultation. For example, the application 1002 mayprovide in the virtual consultation interface a tool for entering thehealthcare professional's notes and/or observations to be appended to amedical chart for the patient. Further, the application 1002 may providean electronic prescription tool for facilitating or enabling thecommunication of prescription information from the healthcareprofessional to the patient, pharmacy information for looking up anddisplaying nearby pharmacies, a referral tool for referring the patientto other healthcare professional users of the system 1000 as well as tohealthcare professionals who are not users of the system 1000. Any suchinformation provided and/or produced during the virtual consultation maybe stored and associated with the patient and/or healthcare professionalwithin the system 1000, e.g., in data storage media 1004.

Records of the virtual consultations provided through the system 1000may be stored and may further be made available to other healthcareprofessionals (e.g., healthcare professional users of the system 1000)for peer review. Reviewing healthcare professionals may rate variousaspects of the virtual consultation, such as the appropriateness ofmedical treatment, clarity and actionability of patient instructions andthoroughness and quality of documentation. Such reviews may be utilizedto rate the healthcare professional users of the system 1000.

Healthcare professionals may be compensated through the application 1002for providing virtual consultations. Compensation may be based on a perconsultation basis, a time-available basis or the like. Similarly,patient users may pay for virtual consultations through the system 1000on a per consultation basis, on a subscription basis (e.g., subscribingusers may receive some preset number of virtual consultations per monthor other time-period) or the like.

The systems and methods provided herein may be integrated or otherwiseincorporated into a single platform for delivering healthcare servicesto users. For example, the healthcare professional evaluation systems(e.g., as shown and described with respect to FIGS. 1 and 3), the systemfor providing answers to user-submitted questions (e.g., as shown anddescribed with respect to FIG. 6) and/or the system for facilitatingvirtual consultations may be integrated into a single platformaccessible to patients and healthcare professionals (e.g., utilizingpatient computer devices and healthcare professional computer devices),thus enabling a variety of functionalities and delivery of healthcareservices through a single portal, accessible to users through theInternet.

While the invention has been described with respect to a limited numberof embodiments, it is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit theinvention to the precise forms disclosed. Persons skilled in the art,having benefit of this disclosure, can appreciate that manymodifications and variations are possible in light of the abovedisclosure. For example, the systems and methods provided herein may beadvantageously employed for use by other professionals or persons havingparticular expertise in any given field, including, lawyers, professors,accountants, contractors, bankers and so on. Accordingly, the scope ofthe invention should be limited only by the following claims.

Many other variations and modifications may be made to theabove-described embodiments of the disclosure without departingsubstantially from the spirit and principles of the disclosure. All suchmodifications and variations are intended to be included herein withinthe scope of the present disclosure and protected by the followingclaims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method for evaluating ahealthcare professional, the method comprising: a. providing a softwareinterface hosted at least partially on a server having a processor andcomputer-readable memory and electronically accessible through at leastone network system by at least one user computer device having aprocessor and computer-readable memory, wherein upon accessing thesoftware interface, a user is presented with categories of topics andpractice areas of expertise associated with the healthcare professionalwhich the user can vote on using the at least one user computer device;b. receiving a plurality of votes for the healthcare professional fromboth credentialed healthcare professional users and patient users; c.processing the votes from the credentialed healthcare users and from thepatient users separately for each topic and practice area; and d.presenting the result of the healthcare professional's votes fromcredentialed healthcare users and from the patient users separately foreach topic and practice area.
 2. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising presenting content showing the healthcare professionals'credentials together with the result of the healthcare professional'svotes.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the result of the healthcareprofessional's votes is determined by a geographic location of thepatient users, wherein the geographic location is at least one of: city,state, and country.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the result of thehealthcare professional's votes is identified as a top result within thegeographic location.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the categories oftopics and practice areas of expertise are selected based on at leastone specialty of the healthcare professional.
 6. The method of claim 1,wherein the categories of topics and practice areas of expertise areselected based on at least one peer-reviewed publication of thehealthcare professional.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein at least oneof the categories of topics and practice areas of expertise is selectedby at least one patient user.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein thecategories of topics and practice areas of expertise are selected by thehealthcare professional.
 9. The method of claim 1, further comprisingpresenting content provided by the healthcare professional together withthe result of the healthcare professional's votes.
 10. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising presenting at least one of: healthcareprofessional users' responses to content provided by the healthcareprofessional, patient users' responses to content provided by thehealthcare professional, and the responsiveness of the healthcareprofessional in providing content.
 11. A healthcare professionalevaluation system, comprising: at least one patient computer devicehaving a processor and computer-readable memory; at least one healthcareprofessional computer device having a processor and computer-readablememory; and a votes processing application, hosted at least partially ona server having a processor and computer-readable memory andelectronically accessible over at least one network system to the atleast one healthcare professional user computer device and the at leastone patient user computer device, wherein the votes processingapplication: a. presents categories of topics and practice areas ofexpertise associated with the healthcare professional which a user canvote on; b. receives a plurality of votes for the healthcareprofessional from the at least one healthcare professional user computerdevice and the at least one patient user computer device, the votes forthe healthcare professional being associated with respective topics andpractice areas; c. processes the received votes from the healthcareprofessional users and from the patient users separately for each topicand practice area; and d. presents the result of the healthcareprofessional's votes received from the healthcare professional users andfrom the patient users separately for each topic and practice area. 12.The system of claim 11, wherein the votes processing applicationpresents content showing at least one credential of the healthcareprofessionals together with the result of the healthcare professional'svotes.
 13. The system of claim 11, wherein the result of the healthcareprofessional's votes is determined by a geographic location of thepatient users, wherein the geographic location is at least one of: city,state, and country.
 14. The system of claim 13, wherein the result ofthe healthcare professional's votes is identified as a top result withinthe geographic location.
 15. The system of claim 11, wherein thecategories of topics and practice areas of expertise are selected basedon at least one specialty of the healthcare professional.
 16. The systemof claim 11, wherein the categories of topics and practice areas ofexpertise are selected based on at least one peer-reviewed publicationof the healthcare professional.
 17. The system of claim 11, wherein atleast one of the categories of topics and practice areas of expertise isselected by at least one patient user.
 18. The system of claim 11,wherein the categories of topics and practice areas of expertise areselected by the healthcare professional.
 19. The system of claim 11,wherein the votes processing application further presents contentprovided by the healthcare professional together with the result of thehealthcare professional's votes.
 20. The system of claim 11, wherein thevotes processing application further presents at least one of:healthcare professional users' responses to content provided by thehealthcare professional, patient users' responses to content provided bythe healthcare professional, and the responsiveness of the healthcareprofessional in providing content. a.